Baby born in hospital elevator

Despite his parents' plans and doctor's prediction, Ashton Lee Simola's arrival in this world began in a hospital elevator Monday with his mother shouting at his father, "He's here! Catch him!"

Heather and Rob Simola were laughing Tuesday as Rob held his 6 pound, 1 ounce healthy baby.

But less than 24 hours earlier, the couple experienced what Rob called the most traumatic event of his life when Heather gave birth to Ashton in the B Elevator at Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Center.

Heather, two weeks shy of her due date for their second child, had stopped at her husband's job at United Rentals to bring him lunch Monday. As they sat eating in the car together, Heather started having contractions about six minutes apart.

On the way to her doctor's office, the contractions became three minutes apart.

Rob said he raced to the hospital down Arrowhead Drive with his hazards on and Heather wailing next to him.

Traffic at Arrowhead and Highway 395 was thick. Rob drove into the right turn lane next to a JAC bus going straight. He pantomimed to the driver that his wife was pregnant and he wanted to get in front.

Whether it was Rob's excellent hand signals or the obvious look of terror on his face, the bus driver got the picture and let him in.

Rob didn't slow down on Medical Parkway, nor did he bother with parking. Panicked, he stopped in front of the hospital doors and hurried his wife inside.

A nurse at the front gave him a wheelchair.

"And I just took off," he said. "I was running as fast as I possibly could."

The elevator to the obstetrics department was some 100 yards down the hall. Rob sped past the reception desk, past the coffee kiosk, and past waiting patients.

"I was hoping he would run faster," said Heather.

When the doors to the elevator slid open, there sat Heather screaming in pain and a crazed Rob behind her.

"There were three kids in the elevator and I just pushed her in and yelled, 'Get out,'" Rob recalled.

The trio obliged and Rob hit the button for the third floor.

But the elevator stopped on the second floor.

A woman walked on, saw the spectacle and said, "Oh my God!" She ran away, Rob said.

Then Heather began pulling her pants off.

Somewhere between floors two and three, Heather screamed. Ashton could wait no longer.

"She said catch him so I caught him," said Rob.

The umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck. Rob said he tried to unravel it but couldn't and the elevator was coming to a stop.

Rob handed the baby off to Heather, and with the child only partly born, she held the cord off his throat as Rob shoved her off the elevator and into the lobby.

Three nurses were waiting for him. They'd gotten three phone calls in the time the couple had raced against fate.

Even before they made it into a room, the tiny baby with the coal black hair was nearly all the way out. Nurses quickly cut the umbilical chord, and Ashton let out a wail.

"It was heaven," said Rob.

Heather said she wanted to apologize to anyone they may have offended and she wanted to thank the JAC driver who let them cut in front of the line, saving them two minutes.

"If we didn't have a name already picked out," she said with a smile, "we might have named him Jack."