I hope you’re not all sick to death of reading posts about babies making unexpected appearances! I’ve gone for a different angle on this one and brought home a copy of the log, so you can see exactly what was going on behind the scenes while I was helping a new grandfather deliver his daughter’s baby.

13.41:49 Call comes in. I give the standard opening line - “Ambulance service, what’s the problem? Tell me exactly what’s happened?”* Middle-aged gentleman explains: “My daughter is pregnant! And she’s having a baby! Like, now! On the bathroom floor!” I condense this to three letters - BBA - which is a clear message to sector to GO GO GO. By the time I have typed BBA and pressed return, the allocator on the sector desk can see the call, but he has to wait until I’ve confirmed the address (which is already on the ticket, because the call is from a BT landline) before he can send.

13.42:09 The address is confirmed. Allocator pulls up a list of available vehicles and decides which one to send. Because the caller has been calm and co-operative, we’ve reached this stage in 20 seconds. My personal record is 23 minutes**.

13.42:15 The first vehicle is sent, from 1.6 miles away. They are currently driving back from hospital, so can make their way straight to the call.

13.42:16 The legendary ORCON time, ie, the point at which I have entered a diagnosis, address, age, status of breathing and consciousness and selected a “chief complaint” card to go through. As you can see, ORCON time has very little to do with the time ambulances are actually sent.

13.42:28 A second vehicle is sent, also from 1.6 miles away, but this one is at an ambulance station so will take a little longer to get moving. If possible, we always send two vehicles to BBAs - one for the baby and one for the mother. We make sure that at least one of them contains a paramedic, or if that’s not possible, send a paramedic in an FRU (car).

13.42:30 First vehicle pushes “amber to scene” to confirm that they’ve got the call and are on the way.

13.43:47 Second vehicle pushes amber to scene.

Meanwhile, I’m still on the phone. I’ve determined that the mother-to-be is full term (phew) and the grandfather to be is checking how close the baby is to being born. The phone is at a distance from the bathroom and the cord won’t reach, so there’s a lot of running around.

“Can you see any… oh! I can see the head!” I hear in the background. “HEAD OUT” I enter on the ticket, to let the crew know what’s happening. Granddad runs back to the phone to tell me. I give him the next set of instructions: “Tell your wife to place the palm of her hand against the vagina to stop the baby’s head delivering too quickly. As the baby comes out, support its head and shoulders and hold the hips and legs firmly. The baby will be slippery so try not to drop it.” I tell him to go back to the bathroom and impart this information and to come back as soon as the baby is delivered, or after three contractions if only the head is out.

After three contractions, he is back. I tell him to reposition the patient in an ungainly way with her bottom raised and legs hooked up to her shoulders.

13.46:50 Five minutes and one second after the call began, the first ambulance crew book red at scene. It takes them a minute or so to unload their equipment from the vehicle and make their way to the front door, so I’m still on the line.

13.47:00 The baby is born! Baby is, thankfully, well and crying so loudly that even I can hear it. I instruct granddad to get towels to clean and wrap the baby and give them to grandma. Then he comes back to the phone. I take the mother’s name and the hospital is under so we can notify the midwives (though ambulance crews are fully trained in childbirth, a midwife has far more training and experience and is still needed) and congratulate granddad on his sterling performance and new addition to the family.

There’s a knock at the door and granddad lets the ambulance crew in, thanks me for my help and says goodbye.

13:48:55 Second crew arrive. Crew report mother and baby well, but placenta not yet delivered, and request midwife to scene.

13:50:00 Midwife is requested. No idea what happens for the next hour. We need a spyhole into people’s houses…

14:47:21 One crew takes mother and baby to hospital for a routine check up. Other crew “greens up”, ie, makes themselves available for another call.

15:21:00 Second ambulance greens up, ready for another job.

I think this is a pretty good example of when everything runs smoothly, except of course for the baby being born on the bathroom floor in the first place! I never got to find out the sex of the baby, but whichever it was, I’m thinking “Lou” might be a good name for it…

* I hate this line. It is far too long and it is impossible to say without a) being interrupted b) sounding like an automated answering service.

** For a foreign man who could neither pronounce nor spell his address, even with the help of an interpreter, could only give the area as “London” and was calling from an untraceable mobile. He did not seem to think this was a problem and kept shouting “Never mind the address, just send the ambulance” in Tamil.

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