Baby born on Florida freeway is healthy, 'doing awesome'

Little Jaden Juniel Rosales is “doing awesome” after making a memorable entrance into the world this week.

He was born in the car early Tuesday morning, on the side of a Florida expressway, as he parents, three siblings and his great-aunt raced to the hospital.

His mother, Grendalee Rosales, woke in the middle of the night with contractions. She and her husband, Jose, bundled their kids into the car and headed to the hospital. They didn’t make it.

"I tell her I have to push and she said, ‘No, don’t push, don’t push yet,’" Grendalee recalled her aunt telling her.

At around 3:30 a.m., Grendalee gave birth – in the moving vehicle.

While an ambulance rushed to their location, it was too late: 7-pound, 12-ounce Jaden, “beat them to the scene.”

"They just could not make it in time," Lisa Greene, a spokesperson for Tampa General Hospital, told PEOPLE. “The baby was in a hurry.”

"I was a little scared," Jaden’s mother, 27-year-old Grendalee Rosales, told reporters at a news conference later that day.”I never had a baby in the car."

A passerby saw the Rosales family waving down cars and stopped. He followed a 911 dispatcher’s advice to wipe off the newborn’s mouth and nose, and tied off the umbilical cord using a nylon cord.

Paramedics arrived shortly after and transported the mother and child to Tampa General Hospital.

Both baby and mother are in doing well. As a precaution, the hospital monitored the pair for the next 48 hours.

"The baby is doing awesome," said Dr. Luis Maldonado, medical director of Tampa General’s Newborn Nursery. “He’s 100 percent healthy.”

"You could almost [say it’s] a miracle the baby’s as healthy as the baby is right now," he added.