By Alexandra Seltzer, Palm Beach Post (Florida)

When her aunt was complaining of stomach pain, Eulalia Pedro thought of her dad and 12-year-old brother.

The 11-year-old remembered her dad taught her to call 9-1-1 in the case of an emergency, and her brother told her to be calm so the dispatcher can understand.

Eulalia knew on Thursday morning that it was an emergency: Her aunt was in labor.

“I knew that it was the baby,” the Odyssey Middle School sixth-grader told The Post on Tuesday evening.

The 9-1-1 call was released to the media Tuesday by Boynton Beach police, and dispatcher Shimeka Rollins said she couldn’t have asked for a better 9-1-1 caller than Eulalia.

“There was no screaming,” said Rollins, a West Palm Beach resident and Boynton Beach police dispatcher for almost eight years. “It was pretty amazing.”

Rollins said she thought of her own 14-year-old daughter and wanted to help Eulalia as much as she could.

Eulalia said she was sleeping around 8 a.m. when her family woke her up as her aunt, Candelaria Juan Francisco, was having stomach pains. Eulalia’s mother is the sister-in-law of Candelaria.

The whole family was surprised that Juan Francisco would be having pains because her doctor had told her on Aug. 14 that Aug. 18 was the due date. Candelaria Juan Francisco, of Guatemala, was in the kitchen cooking tortillas for her husband when she felt pain. However, Eulalia knew it was time to jump into action. She knew they wouldn’t have time to go to the hospital and called for help instead. “It’s an emergency,” Eulalia remembered telling the dispatcher.

Halfway through the call Rollins asked whether Juan Francisco, now a mother of seven, was having contractions, and Eulalia soon said that her aunt had already given birth.

Family members said it was about 30 minutes after Juan Francisco first felt pain when baby Jose Francisco Juan was born. Juan Francisco ended up having the baby on the floor in the family’s bedroom.

Her husband does not speak English so Eulalia spoke to the dispatcher. Rollins stayed on the phone with Eulalia until EMS crews got to the Northeast Third Street home. Rollins had Eulalia translate how to clean the baby and later checked with EMS crews to make sure the boy was healthy. “This is why I became a dispatcher,” Rollins said.

She said Eulalia would be a good dispatcher because she stayed calm throughout the call.

Since baby Jose’s birth, Eulalia has continued helping her family and said she sometimes feeds the baby.

Eulalia said maybe one day she’d become a dispatcher, and while looking back on the day said the experience was “fun” — once everyone was told the baby was OK.

Copyright © 2013 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.