TORRINGTON – While most people were wearing eclipse glasses and staring at the sky just before noon on Monday, Rebecca Froerer was donning a hospital gown and delivering her son, Austin Douglas.
In Goshen County, totality lasted from 11:46 to 11:48 a.m. Austin was born at Community Hospital in Torrington at 11:52 a.m. – Rebecca held off on her last push so the attending doctor and all but one nurse could enjoy the brief, utter darkness.
“Everybody wanted to see it – her husband definitely wanted to see it,” Dr. Bonnie Randolph said. “We were down to the last push, and I said, ‘Can you breathe for a couple minutes?’ We all went and looked at (the eclipse), and then one more push and she had a kid. It was a total high.”
Rebecca went into spontaneous labor at 10 a.m. Monday morning. Fortunately, she and husband, Dathan, who live just outside of Torrington, didn’t run into any heavy traffic on their way into town.
“We should have been more concerned about the traffic,” Dathan said. “We might have left a little sooner.”
