ERVING — Though her midwife told her to be prepared for a quick birth, Amy Clukey expected to make it to Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield from her home in Templeton in time to deliver her second child.

“I joked about it a lot during my pregnancy because my son came so fast that they said, ‘You know, if you have another child, be ready for that,’” recounted Clukey, 37, “but I didn’t think it was really going to happen.”

Although Clukey left Templeton shortly after her contractions started at 5 a.m., plans changed. On Saturday, Jan. 18, at 7:35 a.m., she welcomed her daughter Maisie into the world in the back of an ambulance on the side of Route 2 in Erving.

Although this scenario was something Clukey only joked about, Maisie was born with the help of two Orange EMS crews near Farley Flats.

Clukey is employed as a full-time dental hygienist, and her last day of work was Thursday, Jan. 16, before she went on maternity leave. Early Saturday morning, she said she remembers her labor starting, and progressing on the way to the hospital. As she and her boyfriend, Jordan Stone, hit Exit 32 heading west, her contractions were seven minutes apart, prompting Stone to call 911 to ask for assistance. Although she was preoccupied, Clukey said she remembers passing an Erving Fire Station before pulling over and waiting for EMS.

Once EMS arrived, Clukey said her water broke in the back of the ambulance, and it took her two pushes to deliver her 6-pound, 14-ounce baby girl.

According to a Facebook post from Orange Fire and EMS, the call for assistance came in at 7:10 a.m. — 25 minutes before Clukey delivered her baby.

After two ambulances with four medics arrived, she recalls feeling frightened that her boyfriend was not there, as he was not in the ambulance with her, but she felt comforted by the medics.

“It was definitely a very scary moment, but they helped make it as pleasant as they could,” Clukey said. “I don’t know how I would have gotten through it without those guys, because they were just amazing.”

Clukey said there was a stork sticker inside one of the two ambulances, indicating that a baby had been born in that vehicle before. Orange Fire and EMS Chief James Young explained that when an ambulance crew helps someone give birth, the crew will earn the “stork pin,” which they can keep as a memento or wear on their uniforms.

“For that particular crew, that would have been the first for all four of them,” Young said about the medics.

Although Stone wasn’t on the ambulance for the birth, he still had the chance to cut the umbilical cord before the ambulance took Clukey the rest of the way to Greenfield with her new baby girl. She said she stayed in the hospital until Monday, Jan. 20, and is now back home in Templeton with her family.

Clukey said Maisie has been a healthy and easy baby so far, saying she has to wake her up to feed her most of the time. She said her 13-year-old son, Veikko, has been helping her take care of the baby since being back home.

“He’s the best big brother I could ever ask for,” Clukey said of her son.

This is not the first baby to be born on the side of Route 2, and is in fact the second within just the last six months. Carolyn Gilmore, 22, of Orange, gave birth to her baby girl, Lucia, in the front seat of her car on Aug. 21, 2024.

Similar to Clukey, this was Gilmore’s second baby, and she was on the way to the hospital in Greenfield when she gave birth to her child just after crossing the French King Bridge in Gill. Like Clukey, she had previously been told by her midwife that a second baby can come sooner than the first, and Lucia was born within a half-hour of her water breaking that August morning. An Orange EMS crew also transported Gilmore and her baby to Baystate Franklin, as they were in the area and available to assist.

Young provided his perspective back in August about Gilmore’s birth, saying the crew was in the right place at the right time. Now, just over five months later, Young said that although these things happen, the close proximity in time is quite rare.

“It’s rare to respond to a couple in such, such close proximity to each other, timewise, but that’s what we’re there for,” Young said. “Anytime anybody needs us, that’s what we’re there for.”

Erin-Leigh Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@recorder.com or 413-930-4231.