A woman gave birth to her baby girl in a car Thursday evening shortly before 7 p.m., when she and a male companion were driving to the hospital in the middle of downtown rush hour.

D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Vit Maggiolo says the department responded to the call at 6:42 p.m., and by the time firefighters arrived on scene at 17th and C Streets NW, the woman had already given birth, and was cradling her baby in a sweater in the car. “They were on the way to the hospital and the baby wouldn’t wait,” Maggiolo says. The umbilical cord was still attached when firefighters got there, according to Maggiolo. First responders assessed the mother and baby and both appeared to be healthy.

Paramedics told Maggiolo that the woman did all the right things in her situation, and she was very calm and collected.

“We played a little more of a role of a taxi cab in this situation,” says Dough Buchanan, D.C. Fire’s Chief of Communications. “Mom and baby were healthy and happy. Women were giving birth to children long before doctors and hospitals,” he says.