Woman Endures Labor During Moore, Oklahoma Tornado

Moore, OK — A woman endured active labor during the killer tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma on Monday afternoon. Shayla Taylor, 25, was on the upper floor of the local hospital when the tornado first touched down.

She recalled how the floor shook “like an earthquake” and the ceiling tiles and insulation started falling down around her while she huddled with four nurses around her, suffering from painful labor contractions.

Taylor was nine centimeters dilated and almost ready to push when nurses had to give her a shot to slow labor. But while her husband, Jerome, and the couple’s four-year-old son waited out the tornado in the hospital cafeteria, Shayla was too far along to be moved.

So the four nurses helped shelter her through the storm on the second floor of the acute medical center. She couldn’t recall hearing the same loud roaring sound others heard as the category EF-5 tornado ripped through Moore, Oklahoma, leaving devastation in its wake.

Instead, what stood out the most to Shayla Taylor, amid her intense contractions, was the sheer silence of the twister’s eye. And then it was over. Taylor recalled, “All of a sudden I could see daylight and the wall was gone. I look out and I see I-35 and part of the Warren theater.”

Taylor was quickly reunited with Jerome and their son, Shaiden. With the help of hospital workers, the woman in labor was carried through the destroyed medical center to an ambulance, which took her to another hospital in the Norman Regional Health System.

After three more hours of labor, where doctors determined she would need a cesarean section, Taylor delivered Braeden Immanuel, a healthy eight-pound, three-ounce boy. Taylor explained, “His middle name means, ‘God is with us.’ The name had been picked out for months. Now I know why.”

And the woman who endured labor through the Moore tornado, along with the rest of her family, is grateful she made it through the storm to deliver he baby boy.

[Image via Ks0stm]