"Somehow something inside tells you what you need to do next," Joan Pierre-Mann said.
That something inside of Joan Pierre-Mann was her 6 pound 10 ounce baby boy Daniel and what she needed to do next was to get him out.
The problem was she wasn't in the hospital.
She was in her car with her husband Frederick and their 5-year-old son Kamar.
They were just a half mile from Saint Barnabas Hospital in Livingston.
"I actually missed the turn which is Old Short Hills Road," Frederick Mann said.
Clearly nervous and stressed, Frederick was trying to navigate around overturned buses and stranded cars.
"And of course I knew we were about to have the baby, but I thought a couple of hours 4, 5, 6, or 7 not right then. And then she started fidgeting to take down her pants and I turn the car around. And so when I reached the corner to where there's a turn, I turned and I looked at my wife and she…her legs were up on the dashboard and she had the baby in her arms," Frederick Mann said.
She gave birth right there on the side of the road.
"It just it enfolded as each moment came. One of the things I kept on thinking was, 'I can't deliver this baby', but every moment was like okay, 'let's take the next moment, alright I feel like the head is coming out let's take the next moment'," Joan Pierre-Mann said.
In that next moment, another driver flagged down Essex County Sheriff's Detective John Frucci.
He and his partner jumped into the car.
"Cleared the airway the nose and made sure everything was OK. The whole time the little brother was peering over. I'm on one side my partner on the other, Dad over here. It got a little cramped!" Frucci said.
Then, the family got a police escort the last half mile to the hospital.
"We're all okay despite the blizzard, I think it is a testimony for the miraculous part of this event, but I think that it's definitely been a family affair. Couldn't have asked for a more special beginning to Daniel's birth," Joan Pierre-Mann said.
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