A baby was born in a McDonald’s restroom stall Friday afternoon in the Norwood Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side.
General Manager Leon DeGarie said he was working in the kitchen about 3:40 p.m. when a woman, standing at the door to the restroom, screamed: “Call 911! She’s having a baby!”
DeGarie rushed into the restroom; the woman had just delivered, and was sitting on a toilet. Another woman — a friend or sister, he said — also was in the stall, holding the baby.
“They were screaming, ‘Oh my God, we just had a baby!’” DeGarie said.
He went back to the dining room and yelled for a doctor, but none were in the restaurant, at 6125 N. Milwaukee Ave.
“Some guys said they weren’t doctors but went in anyway to try and help,” said DeGarie, who told an employee to call 911.
Then he went back to the kitchen to catch up on orders.
“I had to come back to the kitchen because there was work,” DeGarie said. “I had to multitask. It was so quick.”
An ambulance showed up about five minutes later, DeGarie said. The mother was wheeled out on a stretcher and a paramedic walked out holding the newborn.
The child and her mother, 37, were taken to Resurrection Medical Center, where their conditions were stabilized, said Chicago Fire Dept. Deputy Chief Juan Hernandez said.
“We would like to extend our thoughts and best wishes to the mother and her new baby” the Funkhouser family, who run the McDonald’s franchise, said in a statement. “We hope to connect with them once they are home safely from the hospital.”
