Sean Barney was driving his wife to the hospital shortly before 8 a.m. when traffic suddenly came to a halt near the Crouching Lion Inn in Ka'a'awa. A woman had crashed her Ford Explorer into a fire hydrant and utility pole.

Lindsay Barney, 23, a counselor at Kahuku High and Intermediate School, said her husband drove out of his lane and got near the Crouching Lion, where a nearby resident offered his house to the couple. A nurse and a birthing coach happened to be near the accident scene tending to the driver of the Explorer.

EMS personnel responding to the accident took Lindsay Barney to Castle in "active labor" after the driver in the accident refused treatment. "We made it," Lindsay Barney said from Castle, where she was expected to give birth about midday. "It will definitely be a day to remember."

The couple plan to name their son Ethan, said Mrs. Barney.

The 7:48 a.m. accident fronting 51-622 Kamehameha Highway knocked out power to 700 customers in the area, said Hawaiian Electric Co. spokesman Jose Dizon. Power was restored to all but 50 of the customers by 8:21 a.m. Police shut down both lanes of a section of the highway between the Kahuku-side of Kahana Bay and Swanzy Beach Park in Ka'a'awa for a couple of hours before opening one lane.