Joyce Hyder holds her new baby girl Thursday at River Region Medical Center. (The Vicksburg Post/Melanie Duncan)

[10/25/02]A Pattison woman got a real taste of life in the fast lane Thursday when she delivered her eighth baby in the parking lot of a convenience store.

Joyce Hyder, 34, was being driven to River Region Medical Center north of Vicksburg from her home southeast of Port Gibson, about 40 miles, when she told the man and woman accompanying her that delivery time had arrived.

“We had called the Claiborne County sheriff’s department to tell them we were coming through because we were driving fast,” said Jeanette Jones. “I called them back and said, It’s me again.’ I told them to send an ambulance to the gas station, because we weren’t going to make it to the hospital.”

She was right. A 7-pound, 13-ounce girl who had not been named this morning was born in the parking lot of Fast Lane gas station and convenience store on U.S. 61 South.

Jones, who identified herself as the baby’s grandmother but said she is not Hyder’s mother, said she could see the baby’s head had begun to emerge but that she did not hear the baby cry or see the baby move.

Then she saw a woman wearing a nurse’s uniform and asked her for help.

Until paramedics arrived, the nurse, whose nametag read “Pat,” helped deliver the baby. The baby cried when the nurse moved her, Hyder said.

“I shook her hand and thanked her,” Jones said.

Jones said the woman then left, headed to her job in Natchez.

“She was just passing through,” Vicksburg Police Lt. Walter Beamon said. “She was an angel on her way to work this morning.”

Hyder said the baby’s father, who would not give his name, was scared throughout the ordeal.

“He’d never seen anything like that,” Hyder said with a laugh. “It was the experience of his lifetime.”

The baby and the mother were in good condition this morning, a hospital spokesman said.

“This is a good success story,” Beamon said. “We’ve seen a miracle today.”.