Baby Makaley Murphy delivered by EMTs in fire department ambulance outside Farmingdale home

When the contractions began Wednesday evening, Gina Murphy and her husband, Sean, called their obstetrician — and made plans to leave their Farmingdale home for North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset. Then her water broke.

"My husband said, 'OK, let's go!' "

"I told him," Gina Murphy recalled Friday from her bed at Good Samaritan University Hospital in West Islip, "No! We're not making it!"

She told Sean to call 911.

"I was scared," Gina Murphy said. "I didn't want my daughter not to be born in a hospital."

Sean and Gina Murphy can laugh about it now, two days after their daughter, Makaley, was born in the back of a Farmingdale Fire Department ambulance outside their home. But the couple, both teachers in the Nassau County BOCES system, said it was a nerve-wracking episode that Gina described Friday as "a whirlwind for all of us."

Farmingdale EMT Phil LoNigro said the 911 call was received at 7 p.m. Wednesday — and said it was good fortune that a bunch of firefighters and EMTs were at the nearby firehouse when it came in.

By 7:03 p.m. two ambulance crews with 10 EMS personnel and eight other firefighters, all under the direction of chiefs Michael Tortoso and Matthew Hammond, were on scene.

"We found the mother, Gina, in the bathroom having contractions," LoNigro said. "First thing we had to do was get her moved to a chair outside the bathroom and then onto a stretcher. But, she started having more contractions and … we realized we weren't going to make it to Good Sam. … We were like, 'This is going to happen here.' "

Gina Murphy, 31, said she and Sean, 41, were reassured by how calm and professional LoNigro and his fellow volunteers were. "He told me, 'Don't worry, for me this will be baby Number 14.' "

In fact, LoNigro, 62, a retired Nassau Correctional Officer, had delivered 13 babies before — all within a four-year period back when he was a patrol officer with the Nassau County Police Department.

The last baby he delivered?

"It was 1988," LoNigro said Friday.

"What?" Gina Murphy said when told. "Holy Mackerel! I'm glad he didn't tell me that at the time. All he told me was, 'Don't worry, this will be Number 14' — and I was so reassured.

"1998? I wasn't even born."

"It's like driving a car," LoNigro said Friday, with a laugh. "Besides, the mother does most of the work."

Murphy said she and her husband hadn't gone through any drama during the birth of their first child, son Mason, now 18-months-old. She had labor induced then.

"I didn't want to get to the hospital too soon because of that," she said. "But this? This was very fast."

LoNigro said that within a minute or so after getting into the ambulance the baby crowned and that Makaley was delivered by 7:10 p.m. There was one complication, the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. But, he said, that was quickly resolved — and fellow EMT Ryan Hunt suctioned out Makaley's mouth and nose.

"Once she cried everyone let out a big sigh of relief," he said.

On Friday, Sean was busily changing a diaper for his daughter at Good Samaritan — and Gina was all smiles as she waited for discharge papers to be finalized.

"They did a fantastic job," she said of the Farmingdale EMTs and firefighters. "They were great."

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”