by Marty Green ·
Friday, March 28, 2025
A group of firefighters and emergency medical technicians gathered in front of the Harvard Fire Station last Saturday, March 22, for a rare presentation. Five EMTs from Harvard and Ayer were about to receive their stork pins—the award for delivering a baby during an emergency medical call.
Joe Pulido, Christopher Tota, and Samantha Williams of the Harvard Emergency Medical Service, along with Jared Wayne and Cameron Breault from the Ayer EMS, received the pins for assisting with the birth of Lennon Eloraina Saball on Sunday, March 16. Wayne and Breault were dispatched as Advanced Life Support paramedics, which is the protocol for childbirth calls.
Tota said, “As first responders, we see a lot of sad stories, so it’s good to be part of something so happy.”
A little after 3 a.m. that Sunday, Max Saball and Ryian Vandal of Phillipston were rushing east on Route 2 to Emerson Hospital when they realized the baby would arrive before they got there. They called 911 and asked for an ambulance to meet them on the highway. Vandal said the baby girl was born during the phone call. The Harvard ambulance crew arrived within minutes, clamped the umbilical cord, and took the parents and new baby to the hospital.
“My biggest fear,” Vandal said at the presentation Saturday, “was being on the side of the highway with no one around. When they showed up, it was an instant relief.”
Vandal and Saball brought 6-day-old Lennon to the ceremony, wearing a big, white bow on her head. Lennon slept through most of the event, but her brother, 3-year-old Kole, was eager to see the fire engines.
In a link to history, the stork pins were presented to the five EMTs by Hannah Beckman. It had been more than two decades since Harvard EMTs were called on to deliver a baby. And that baby had been Hannah, now 21 and an EMT herself. Her father, Steven Beckman, had delivered her in the ambulance on the way to Emerson Hospital; he was in medical school and also serving as a Harvard EMT at the time.
From left: Cameron Breault, Jared Wayne, Chris Tota, Ryian Vandal holding daughter Lennon Saball, Kole Saball, Max Saball, Samantha Williams, Joe Pulido, and Hannah Beckman. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)