In a world first, a woman gave birth in the front seat of a Tesla while it was operating on autopilot.
The mother from Philadelphia told the Philadelphia Inquirer about the delivery, which happened one morning in September while she was taking her three-year old son to pre-school.
Yiran Sherry, 33, realised her water had broken while she and her husband were stuck in traffic.
Her husband placed the vehicle on autopilot after setting the satellite navigation to the hospital which was twenty minutes away. Keating Sherry told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he put one hand on the steering wheel while monitoring his wife.
“She was squeezing my hand to the point where I thought she was going to shatter it,” he said.
“I was [saying] ‘Yiran, OK, focus on your breathing.’ That was advice to myself, as well. My adrenaline was pumping.”
According to People magazine, she recalled asking herself, “Should I push or should I hold? Should I push or should I hold? Fuck it, let’s do this.”
Her daughter, named Maeve Lily, was born just as they arrived at the hospital. The baby’s umbilical cord was severed by nurses over the car’s front seat.
“Once the paediatrician said, ‘She’s healthy, congratulations,’ that was quite the sigh of relief,” the father said.
When she was admitted into hospital, Yiran said the nurses kept coming into her room to see the “Tesla baby”.
“[They would ask] ‘Are you the one who delivered the baby in the car?’” she said.
“Thank you genius Tesla engineers for your brilliant design of autopilot,” the father said.
Image: Philadelphia Inquirer