Vidalia — Not many fathers can say they have delivered their own child on the floor of their apartment.

But Vidalia firefighter Marvin Warner certainly can.

After finishing his shift at the fire department early Friday morning, Warner ran home to check on his pregnant wife.

He arrived to find his wife, Tileesha, in the bathtub, about to give birth. He immediately called 911.

“I got home and saw my wife standing in the bathroom telling me, ‘He’s about to come,’” Warner said. “And I said, ‘No, the baby can’t come here.’”

Tileesha, a licensed practical nurse at Living Well Clinic in Vidalia, had been trying to prepare the couple’s two daughters, Lyric, 7, and Marlee, 4, for school, but called her mother and sister when she found she was unable to walk.

Tileesha had delayed calling her husband at work because she thought the labor pains might have been a false alarm.

“I felt that burning sensation that made me push real hard,” Tileesha said. “That’s when I knew that this was for real.”

Tileesha’s mother and sister had arrived and were trying to get Tileesha out of the tub and to the hospital when Warner came home from work.

Warner, a former National Guard soldier, tried to carry his wife to the car, but her labor was too advanced.

“She was screaming,” Warner said. “I was trying to go the hospital but she couldn’t stop getting contractions. I went ahead and checked for crowning and my son was playing peekaboo.”

Tileesha lay on the floor in the hallway and began to push while her husband was on the phone with Capt. Tim Vanier of Vidalia Fire Department.

“I knew what to do, but I needed some medical direction to make sure I (didn’t) forget anything,” Warner said.

Warner told Vanier that an ambulance was on the way, but the baby was visibly crowning and that there was no time to get Tileesha to the hospital. Vanier, the EMT instructor and training officer at the VFD, instructed Warner to first take a deep breath.

“I told him to follow his training, and I just walked him through each step,” Vanier said.

Warner put Vanier on speakerphone, and Vanier gave instructions to the couple based on Warner’s description of what was happening.

Tileesha said she was just focused on pushing.

“I was mostly just hollering and hurting,” she said.

It only took two big pushes for baby Isaiah to make his arrival after his mother laid down.

“Everything happened fast at that point,” Marvin said.

By the time the ambulance arrived, the baby had already been born.

The mother and child were taken to the hospital to make sure they were healthy. The family was able to return home Sunday.

“A lot of people ask me why I waited so long to go to the hospital, but I really didn’t think I was in labor,” Tileesha said.

Vanier said he was just glad that everyone was healthy.

“It was tremendous to know that I was a small part in that,” he said.

Warner, who had just finished his EMT training last week, posted his jubilation to Facebook.

“So how many fellas can say they delivered their own baby, in their apartment, in the hallway?” Warner wrote. “This guy!”