Mom Reunites with Stranger Who Helped After She Delivered Baby on Side of Pa. Turnpike: 'He Saved the Day' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Andrenna Reid (left) and Robert Stenger.Photo:Jefferson Health

Jefferson Health

On June 15, just a week away from her due date, Andrenna Reid began having frequent contractions. Pregnant with her second child, the 32-year-old accountant gathered her husband, Santana Reid, 26, and some of their friends and drove to the hospital.

Much to Andrenna’s surprise, the hospital discharged her. “You can go home. You only have [dilated] three centimeters,” she remembers the staff telling her. “I was literally in tears. I was really in pain.”

Frustrated and worried that she had wasted loved ones’ time, she returned to her home in King of Prussia, Penn., with her 1-year-old son, Semario, while her husband headed to work as an autobody technician.

By 2 a.m., her pain intensified. “I was just holding the wall, trying to get to the bathroom,” recalls Andrenna, who woke her sleeping son, struggling to cope with the pain. “I was rushing him to get out of the house.”

Andrenna’s husband had gone back to finish a work project late at night, after their earlier trip to the hospital, so she tried reaching a neighbor to watch her toddler — but no success. She bundled Semario up in the back seat of her car and entered the Pennsylvania Turnpike, maneuvering into the fast lane on the far left side of the highway, planning to make it to the hospital as quickly as possible.

Then everything began happening very quickly.

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“I started having a contraction, then another one, and thought — I’m just going to pull over,” says Andrenna.

From the side of the turnpike, she called 911. “It was very scary. I didn’t have any time. I barely had time to pump the brakes on the car," she says.

A few minutes later, she was relieved to see lights in her rear-view mirror.

“When I got to the window, I honestly didn’t think I had the right car because Andrenna was so calm,” says Robert Stenger, 52, a maintenance utility worker for the Pennsylvania Turnpike who was the first responder to arrive at the scene.

“Everybody worked together so nicely. It was definitely a group effort,” Stenger says. He also praises the state police, calling them a “huge help.”

Having someone to rely upon during a moment of need meant the world to Andrenna, too, she says.

“I might sound corny, but my angel is a real-life person,” she says. “I was on the side of the road and there was so much going on. And I was like, ‘Oh my God, I see someone’s right, right there. I see a live human.' ”

“He saved the day,” she says.

Andrenna didn’t actually learn Stenger’s name that morning, but she was determined to track him down. Three days after giving birth, she called the administrative office of the turnpike. “I wanted to find the angel I was blessed with,” she says.

Dirkje Dunham (left), a certified nurse midwife who helped with Andrenna Reid’s care at Jefferson Abington Hospital, along with Reid (fifth from left), her husband, Santana (fourth from left), and Robert Stenger (third from left), who helped Reid give birth; pictured together with some of Stenger’s colleagues in July.Jefferson Health

On Thursday, July 25, she got her reunion: She met Stenger alongside some of the medical team at Jefferson Abington Hospital, where she went after giving birth.

Stenger looks back on Andrenna’s delivery with gratitude that he could be a part of such a moment, he says: “I don’t have children. It was amazing just to see life right there all of a sudden. I appreciate Andrenna letting me share it with her.”

As for Andrenna, the experience has left her changed forever.

“I’ve always cherished life, but [the experience] makes me look at everything totally differently now,” she says. “There are still wonderful, beautiful people in this world. It was just everything.”

“I’ll never forget that moment,” she says. “I’ll never forget Robert as long as I live.”

source: people.com