The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Oh baby, we’re so pleased to see you both again!
BIRTH: Wee Keldan and his mum meet the paramedics who brought him into the world in a layby near the Carnock Inn
A Fife mother who gave birth in a lay-by has been reunited with the paramedics who helped her deliver her second child.
Oakley’s Keryn Laver, who already had a son Torin, was due to give birth to her second child on March 11 last year.
However, at around 8pm on March 7 with husband Jules beside her, the 39-year-old phoned Victoria Hospital to say she was having contractions two minutes apart.
She was told to get to hospital fast. Twenty minutes later her waters broke as she was getting into the car and soon afterwards, the couple pulled into a layby near the Carnock Inn and Jules called 999.
“They could hear me in the background,” Keryn recalls.
“I was in the front seat and I still had my jeans on.”
A Scottish Ambulance Service team arrived and as soon as Dunfermlinebased paramedics Andrew Paterson and Richard Garside put her on a stretcher the baby’s head appeared.
The pair then helped deliver healthy 8lb 6oz Keldan at 9.03pm.
Keryn added: “Holding this little baby, I was full of joy. I think it was a huge relief for my husband that he did not have to deliver it!”
Keryn said it was a “totally different experience” from the birth of her first child which was a long labour.
“I prefer a quick birth,” she said. She praised the crew for their support and help.
Andrew also gave Keldan a knitted beanie, made by the paramedic’s grandmother, and kept in the back of the ambulance for such occasions.
Last week was the first time Keldan and his mum had met the crew since that eventful night 15 months ago.
Keryn said: “It was great to see Richard and Andy again.
“It was a very, very memorable birth and I am absolutely pleased it turned out the way it did. We were lucky it was very straightforward.”
Richard, who is now an air ambulance paramedic, said: “As the patient was in a car, in a layby, in labour we knew the birth was imminent so we got there quickly.”
“A couple of minutes slower and the baby would have been born in the car footwell,” he laughed.
leclark@thecourier.co.uk