It was like something out of a movie, says a Merritt couple after bringing their daughter into the world halfway to Royal Inland Hospital.

“It’s one of those things you read about and you think ‘Wow that’s terrifying. That will never happened to me,’” said Kay-Dee Bigelow.

Kay-Dee and her newborn daughter Mikayla are resting comfortably at Royal Inland Hospital after a harrowing delivery early Monday morning involving two heroic men — dad Dan Bigelow and level-headed emergency medical dispatcher Corey deDelley.

Mikayla was due Tuesday but Kay-Dee had been feeling occasional contractions for a month when early Monday morning, contractions reached five minutes apart and they decided to drive to Kamloops for the eventual delivery.

The couple thought they had plenty of time to make it since their four-year-old son Ryan, who was with Grandma, took nearly eight hours of labour to be born.

“The plan was to get to the hospital and if I was in labour get set up in the hospital with doctors and epidurals and everything would be fine,” she said. “But it didn’t work that way.”

Instead, 40 minutes outside of Kamloops, Kay-Dee went into full labour, her water broke and they knew their daughter’s birth was imminent.

Dan had just enough time to call 911, and he reached deDelley.

“Corey immediately calmed the situation down,” said Dan.

“I pulled over and next thing you know, there was a head.”

Kay-Dee was “freaked,” said Dan, but when birth began happening, she got to work.

“I was just completely terrified,” said Kay-Dee. “But once she started crowning I was OK. It was like ‘Just shut up and do this.’ Your instincts just take over.”

It took only 10 minutes for Mikayla to arrive and Dan was able to assist thanks to deDelley’s instructions provided by a cellphone in speaker mode.

“Corey talked me through the entire delivery of my baby girl,” said Dan. “He was very calm and precise with his directions.”

“This was certainly a special situation,” said deDelley. “It’s not every day that we use our medical knowledge to deliver a baby.”

The ambulance arrived 15 minutes later and transported Mikayla and Kay-Dee to Royal Inland Hospital.

Mikayla weighed in at nine pounds and was 20 inches long. The nurses call her “Coquihalla baby.”

She was born just shy of Mother’s Day and big brother’s fifth birthday, both happening Sunday.

Meanwhile, Dan is still stunned by what happened.

“It’s neat in a way that not many people get to do that. But it’s terrifying in a way that there are so many things that could’ve gone wrong,” he said. “We’re just happy that everything is good. They’re both doing great.”