Customer Gives Birth at Speedway
GOOSE CREEK, S.C. -- Veronica Bankins was a regular customer at the Goose Creek Speedway in South Carolina, which is just a stone's throw from her apartment complex. Now, she said, she may too embarrassed to return.
That's because Bankins, with a little help from her boyfriend, delivered her fourth child in the Speedway parking lot last week. "I look up and there's like three guys standing there staring and grinning," she told the Charleston (S.C.) Post Courier yesterday, one week after delivering newborn, Madeline Georgia Myree Benton.
She'd seen her doctor that morning and didn't expect to deliver for another couple of days, at least. Then the contractions began. The pain came every five to seven minutes until she could no longer take it. So she called Madeline's father, Matt Benton.
"He runs the stoplight and I'm telling him, 'You've got to stop,'" Bankins said. Benton asked his girlfriend of four years if she could hang on until they reached the hospital.
"I told him, 'The head's out, we've got to stop,'" Bankins said.
He pulled into the Speedway, jumped out of the car and shouted to Dana Carter, a 20-year-old cashier, "Call 911, my wife's having a baby," Carter said.
"I didn't think anything about it until I heard this woman screaming and saw [Benton] taking off her pants," Carter said. "I'm going, 'Holy crap, he's serious.'"
Carter stood guard over Bankins while curious customers strained for a peak. At 8:55 p.m., Madeline was born. Paramedics arrived moments later, loaded mother and daughter into an ambulance and drove them to the hospital.
Bankins since has kept a low profile.
"I delivered her in the front seat of my car. There I was, practically naked, having a baby in the parking lot of a gas station," Bankins said. "I used to go there every day. I'm too embarrassed to go back."
That's because Bankins, with a little help from her boyfriend, delivered her fourth child in the Speedway parking lot last week. "I look up and there's like three guys standing there staring and grinning," she told the Charleston (S.C.) Post Courier yesterday, one week after delivering newborn, Madeline Georgia Myree Benton.
She'd seen her doctor that morning and didn't expect to deliver for another couple of days, at least. Then the contractions began. The pain came every five to seven minutes until she could no longer take it. So she called Madeline's father, Matt Benton.
"He runs the stoplight and I'm telling him, 'You've got to stop,'" Bankins said. Benton asked his girlfriend of four years if she could hang on until they reached the hospital.
"I told him, 'The head's out, we've got to stop,'" Bankins said.
He pulled into the Speedway, jumped out of the car and shouted to Dana Carter, a 20-year-old cashier, "Call 911, my wife's having a baby," Carter said.
"I didn't think anything about it until I heard this woman screaming and saw [Benton] taking off her pants," Carter said. "I'm going, 'Holy crap, he's serious.'"
Carter stood guard over Bankins while curious customers strained for a peak. At 8:55 p.m., Madeline was born. Paramedics arrived moments later, loaded mother and daughter into an ambulance and drove them to the hospital.
Bankins since has kept a low profile.
"I delivered her in the front seat of my car. There I was, practically naked, having a baby in the parking lot of a gas station," Bankins said. "I used to go there every day. I'm too embarrassed to go back."