Do you ever find yourself in a situation and have no idea what to do next? Maybe your child’s soccer jersey shrunk in the dryer right before their big game, or you completely lost your train of thought during a presentation. In these situations, you do your best to keep calm and improvise. However, all you can do inside is panic.
Shannon Bird, a mother of five, did exactly that when she was breastfeeding her six-week-old daughter London on January 28, 2020 at 2 a.m., only to discover that she had no milk left.
“I’ve never had any complications ever with breastfeeding. I went into full panic mode,” Bird admitted.
The mother had two ounces of frozen breast milk available. However, because she’d be feeding her infant every two to three hours, the amount of milk would not suffice.
Bird first called her husband, who was out of town at the time. No answer. She also tried to call family members and even neighbors. Nobody was picking up.
Normally, Bird would have loaded all five of her kids in the car and driven to the nearest store to pick up some baby formula. However, there were a few problems: It was snowy outside, four of Bird’s children were fast asleep, and one of her children had a cast on. Thus, it’d be difficult to get everyone loaded into the car and safely get to the store and back. Not to mention, the exhausted, overwhelmed mother was in no condition to drive.
So, Bird called 911 to ask for help. Her initial plan was to have the officers watch her children while she went to the store herself.
“I’ve never been in this predicament ever. My milk just literally dried out. This is my fifth kid and this has never happened,” she told the dispatcher.
Police officers, Konner Gabbitas and Brett Wagstaff, responded to the unusual call. Seeing “need milk” on the dispatcher’s notes, the duo purchased a gallon of milk at a grocery store by mistake. It wasn’t until they arrived at Bird’s house that they realized it was baby formula that she needed.
“We’ll leave this with you,” Wagstaff told the mother. “We’ll be right back with some formula for your baby. She’s adorable.”
Wagstaff, who’s a father of three, completely understood the situation. He ended up picking out a brand of formula that he was familiar with.
“That’s the same stuff we gave my daughter when she was first born, so hopefully it doesn’t upset her stomach,” he said.
The officers refused to make Bird pay for both the baby formula and the gallon of milk.
Bird was touched by their generosity.
“They went above and beyond and helped me when I was most in need,” the mother said.
Officer Wagstaff believes that it was all part of the job of a police officer. Helping others is what he enjoys doing, so responding to Bird’s call wasn’t a hassle.
“It’s just part of the job,” Wagstaff said in a CNN interview. “I don’t think there’s any officer in the world that would have acted differently. We all got in this job for different reasons, but all the officers I know just want to help people.”
Wagstaff and Gabbitas are phenomenal police officers for handling Bird’s situation the way they did!
Click play below to hear more of what Bird has to say about her gratefulness for the police officers’ deed.
