St John EMTs help roadside birth
Giving birth on the side of the road at Burkes Pass is unlikely to be top of the list of options for most expectant mothers, let alone during the cold winter months.
But for one woman, that was her only option as her husband attempted to get her from Twizel to Timaru after she went into labour in the early hours of Sunday, June 11.
The pair got as far as Burkes Pass before pulling over on the side of State Highway 8 to wait for help to arrive. Luckily, two Fairlie based St John emergency medical technicians (EMT) were not far away.
EMT Barry Adie said he got the call about the Twizel woman in labour at about 5.30am. ‘‘They gave us the details ’birth over certain number of weeks, coming in a car towards you’, and I immediately called up Blue,’’ Adie said.
EMT Blue Kerr had a background in obstetrics, so she was an obvious choice of co-worker, Adie said.
Kerr said they, along with St John volunteer Bill Garrow, met the expectant parents just before 6am.
‘‘I went to the car and mum said ‘the head is there’,’’ Kerr said.
Patients cannot be shifted at that stage of labour, so the baby was delivered in the front seat of the car. ‘‘It was incredibly cold,’’ Kerr said. The father then took the baby into the ambulance where it was checked over, while Kerr stayed with the mother.
Kerr said the mother did very well given the circumstances.
‘‘It was just lovely, a nice straight forward birth and delivery. Bubs cried straight away,’’ Kerr said.
The ambulance stopped in at the Fairlie Medical Centre where a doctor did a quick check of the mother and baby. ‘‘Everything was ok so we just carried on to Timaru,’’ Kerr said.
It was the second birth Kerr had assisted with in her 30 plus years as a St John volunteer. The first was about 20 years ago.