Foot doctor delivers wife's baby

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (WSVN) -- A doctor made quite the special delivery, and it took place outside the hospital.

A Broward foot doctor may want to change his specialty to obstetrics after he delivered his wife's baby.

The front seat of their car didn't look like a hospital delivery room, but for Dr. Timothy Hawkes, his wife Katelin and newborn son Liam, that's exactly what it was, early Tuesday morning. "I was holding the baby's head with one hand," said Hawkes, "and putting the car in park with the other."

Hawkes described how he had to deliver his baby boy in the parking lot of Broward Health Medical Center after his race to get his wife to the ER fell a few feet and a few seconds short. "He's given us issues from the get go," said Hawkes' wife, Katelin. "He's been in charge from the very beginning, so we were not surprised that he came out this way."

Katelin's water broke after her last doctor visit and, before she knew it, she was on the verge of delivering. "I grabbed both of our kids," said Hawkes, "put them in the back of the car, got them strapped in, and from there we made the mad dash to the hospital."

"If anyone had to be in the car with me at that moment I would want it to be him," said Katelin. By the time the family of four reached the hospital parking lot from their home in Davie, they were a family of five. "The baby just came right out," said Hawkes. "He immediately started to cry and the wonderful OB team came out and helped me out."

While the new father of three is a doctor, babies are not his specialty. "I am an Orthopedic resident," said Hawkes. "I do not deliver babies."

But, he learned enough from his obstetrics rotation to help his wife safely bring their son into the world in the front seat of their car. "It's the way to go," said Hawkes, "I recommend everybody try it at least once."

The baby's full name is William Carter Hawkes. The middle name Carter is an homage to his birthplace.

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