A New Constituent, Born in His Front Seat
Council Member's Baby Can't Wait for Green Light

By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Paramedic Elizabeth King of the Alexandria Fire Department got the call at 6:35 a.m. Monday. She heard a man in a car, on a cellphone, screaming.

Then she heard a baby crying.

"First thing you need to do, sir, is stop your car," King said to the man, whose wife had just delivered a baby in the front seat of their Toyota Highlander.

In the SUV was Justin Wilson, who was recently elected to the Alexandria City Council, his wife, Alex Crawford-Batt, and now a third passenger, Lena Eliza Wilson, arriving two weeks before her due date.

Wilson's wife had known something was up Sunday, the day of the grand reopening of T.C. Williams High School. She started having contractions in the afternoon, so Wilson went to the school alone. When he came home, they called the doctor.

The doctor told them to go to the hospital when the contractions came regularly every five minutes for an hour. Wilson, methodical and deliberative, timed them. Seven minutes, 15 minutes, six minutes. No regular pattern.

About 5 a.m., Crawford-Batt got anxious. Time to go, she said. Suddenly, events overtook them.

"At 5:45 a.m., it was like a switch got flipped," Wilson recalled. "It got very active."

The baby was arriving, right in the foyer of their Del Ray home. Crawford-Batt began yelling. Neighbors came out to see what was happening. Residents e-mailed Wilson to ask why a woman was screaming in their neighborhood. Crawford-Batt and Wilson, both 28, jumped into their SUV to head to Inova Alexandria Hospital.

They hit the notoriously slow stoplight where Braddock Road, King Street and Quaker Lane come together. "You always get stuck there at inopportune times," Crawford-Batt said.

Lena was born at the stoplight. Wilson grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911. After the instructions from King, the paramedic, Wilson pulled to the side of the road. Crawford-Batt wiped the baby off with a towel.

A few minutes later, an ambulance arrived. Medic Tim Malanka, a father of seven, cut Lena's umbilical cord and held her until they arrived at the hospital.

Father, mother, baby and brother Eli are doing fine.