7-Eleven worker helps deliver baby in store parking lot

EUGENE, Ore. (KEZI) - A 7-Eleven employee is a godmother after she helped a woman in the middle of labor and her husband after they couldn’t find the hospital.

From pumping gas for customers to checking them out at the counter, Karin Warren does a little bit of everything working the graveyard shift at a 7-Eleven in Eugene, Oregon.

But what happened just after 3 a.m. Sept. 6 is something she’ll never forget.

“There was a man outside, and he needed somebody to call 911 because his wife was having a baby,” Warren said. “Her husband was frantic. He didn’t know what to do, so I told him to get towels and scissors.”

Warren says she heard the frantic screams from the expecting mother, who was in a car in the parking lot, and immediately called 911. Before emergency responders arrived, she stood beside her the entire time, telling her to breathe slowly.

“That’s when she actually stuck her leg up on my shoulders, and I was like, ‘Whoa, OK,’” Warren said. “And the way she was screaming, you would’ve thought it was her first baby.”

Warren doesn’t have any medical experience, but as a mother of three herself, she said instinct kicked in during the birth, calling it “mama mode.”

“She pushed twice, and there he was,” she said “I always wanted to see a baby be born, other than mine. It was incredible.”

The couple is originally from California and didn’t know where the nearest hospital was, which led them to this situation that created quite the special bond.

“They couldn’t thank me enough, and they made me godmama,” Warren said.

She says the baby’s name is Ryatt, and she plans to be in contact with his family for life.