A tiny baby named Aurora is only a newborn, but she’s already been to a massive music and arts festival.
Aurora’s mother didn’t know she was pregnant when she went into labor during Burning Man 2025, KGO reported.
New mom Kayla Thompson said she and her husband were asleep in their RV when she woke up in pain. She thought it was something she ate or she had something wrong with her appendix, she told The New York Times.
Thompson works in medical billing and says she did not have any pregnancy symptoms.
A spokesperson for Burning Man Project confirmed to the “Today” show that a baby was “spontaneously” born on Aug. 27 at the festival.
Luckily, a nurse was at the right place at the right time.
Maureen O’Reilly, the RN who helped after Aurora was delivered, said the mother didn’t appear to be expecting.
“She did not look pregnant, not one bit!” O’Reilly told KGO.
Other medical professionals, including an OB-GYN, had already gotten to the camper where the baby was born.
Dr. Jacob Christ, OB-GYN, was in his underwear when he helped deliver Thompson’s placenta, the Times reported.
O’Reilly told KGO, “My campmates ran over and said, ‘Somebody just had a baby.’ And so I just took off. They lifted the baby just as I got into the RV. They were cutting the cord.”
No one better than O’Reilly could have been needed, as she has experience working in neonatal critical care.
They handed Aurora, who was born at about 35 weeks and weighed only 3 pounds, 9.6 ounces and was 16.5 inches long, to O’Reilly.
“I started yelling at people to turn the heat on, to get me some blankets,” she said. “It was just so frightening, how you know we’re in the middle of nowhere with nothing.”
O’Reilly said Aurora’s coloring was good and she was crying and breathing well. Fellow campers found a heated water bottle to keep her warm.
Medics finally arrived and took Aurora to the mobile hospital before she was flown to a hospital in Reno.
Aurora was admitted to a NICU in Reno and her parents were staying in a nearby hotel until she could be transferred to Salt Lake City.
A GoFundMe was set up not only to help with the medical care, but also to help the new parents get the items they need for their unexpected daughter.
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