A woman visiting the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse gave birth on Friday while dallying at the bear exhibit and most likely wondering, "Do bears really like honey?" Then, bang — her uterus started contracting and a small team of emergency capuchin monkey midwives was quickly assembled to help the woman give birth safely. Okay, fine — there weren't any capuchin midwives, but if the third season of American Horror Story takes place at a haunted zoo, a character should definitely have to give birth with the help of tiny capuchins dressed in scrubs and an elephant obstetrician that wears a lab coat, a head mirror, and comically oversized stethoscope.
The Syracuse Post-Standard reports that, at about 11:00 am on Friday, Zoo Education Coordinator Liz Schmidt heard on her nifty zoo radio that a woman was going into labor on the walkway in front of the bear exhibit. Schmidt said she didn't think the woman would deliver at the zoo, but the baby apparently came barrelling out of the mother's cervix faster than shot out of a blunderbuss. Zoo staff, being well-versed all manner of mammal births, were on hand to provide the mother some blankets and moral support, as well as ferry impressionable children away from the makeshift birthing area to go have a looksie at the lions, even though all lions do at the zoo is nap and begrudge you with their haunted eyes.
By the time the woman had given birth to a healthy baby girl, an ambulance crew had arrived to ferry mother and daughter to a proper hospital, where they will await an animal-themed gift (fingers crossed for a stuffed sloth) from zookeepers.
Rosamond Gifford Zoo staff rushed to mother delivering baby on path [Syracuse Post-Standard]
Image via Surkov Vladimir/Shutterstock.