He might be the most Massachusetts dad ever.
A Cape Cod couple was driving to the hospital to give birth to their daughter when she made her grand entrance early, leading her quick-thinking father to deliver her on the side of the highway — where he lost his wedding ring in the process — and made an unplanned Dunkin’ run.
Rebecca and Danya Mahota were heading to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Plymouth, an hour away from their home in Brewster, on Aug. 8 when Rebecca’s water broke about 26 minutes into the trip.
“One contraction later, he had pulled over to the side of the road, I was already holding her head,” Rebecca Mahota told WCVB.
“(Rebecca) starts screaming, and she’s like, ‘She’s coming,’” Danya Mahota said, according to Cape Cod Times.
“I’m driving, obviously, I reach down between my wife’s legs, and, sure enough, I feel the top of my daughter’s head.”
The concerned husband immediately pulled over behind some bushes on the side of Route 6.
“‘We’re gonna have to do this right here,’” Danya, who has no medical training, recalled Rebecca saying.
“I said, ‘OK, baby, well, let’s just go slow and figure it out,” he told the outlet — and before he knew it, little Summer arrived in the passenger seat of the couple’s Land Rover.
She “started crying, and everything was great,” the proud dad told the Cape Cod Times.
The Mahotas realized they couldn’t wait for an ambulance on the side of the highway, so they did the most Massachusetts thing they could do: They headed to a Dunkin’ parking lot to await first responders.
“They handed me a sterilized X-Acto knife, and I, like every Massachusetts father, cut my baby’s umbilical cord in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot,” Danya joked to the outlet.
Mother and baby were taken to the hospital, where they were monitored for a few days before heading home.
But once they arrived at the facility, they realized that Rebecca’s phone was missing — as was Danya’s wedding ring, which appeared to have slipped off when he was delivering Summer.
They easily found the cellphone thanks to GPS tracking, but it took a few days, some friends and a metal detector to locate Danya’s ring, according to the Cape Cod Times.
“I found it about eight feet from where the phone was,” he said. “It had fallen and slipped off my finger because, obviously, my hands were a mess.”
Rebecca called her husband “incredible” for keeping her and Summer safe during the unexpected birth.
“She had a different plan to enter this world. I keep calling her the showstopper,” she told the outlet.
