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The emergency medical volunteers also resuscitated the baby when she emerged pulseless after the delivery.
By Beth Stern, United with Israel
Emergency medical technicians saved the life of a premature baby very early Wednesday morning with the aid of hospital doctors who coached them through the breech birth by video, Israel National News reported Wednesday.
The mother, in her eighth month of pregnancy, called for help when she suddenly saw her daughter’s leg appear around 3 AM, the report said. Two volunteers from United Hatzalah immediately rushed to the Kiryat Gat apartment to find the birth going quickly, if not well.
“When I arrived at the scene together with another EMT, we found that the baby’s entire lower body was already exited the birth canal,” said Tzvi Yosef Shapira.
However, they saw that the preemie’s skin looked blue, he added, and notified the dispatch center that “something needed to be done immediately in order to save her life.”
Dispatch staff contacted the closest medical center, Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, and within 60 seconds, a senior OB-GYN, a senior pediatrician, and three midwives from the hospital’s maternity unit began a joint video call with the EMTs.
The obstetrician used a doll to demonstrate how to deliver the infant safely, and the EMTs followed the instructions to the letter. But the crisis was not over yet, according to Shapira.
“We did exactly as we were shown and very quickly we were able to extract the infant from the birth canal,” he said, “but she was pulseless and not breathing. We immediately initiated CPR, applying compressions on the baby girl’s chest and providing her with assisted ventilation. We were very worried, but thankfully, after a few tense moments, the baby’s pulse was restored.”
According to the report, it took 20 minutes for a regular ambulance to arrive after the EMTs, and an additional ten minutes passed before an intensive care ambulance came on the scene. The second, more experienced medical personnel arrived just as the baby was losing her pulse again. They helped resuscitate her a second time, and she then began breathing on her own.
The obstetrician asked that the infant be taken immediately to the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for examination, even without her mother, who was still being treated by the medical staff after losing a large amount of blood during the emergency. After being stabilized, she, too, was evacuated to the hospital.
Shapira was thankful that this experience, which was a first for him, turned out so well.
“I’ve been a volunteer EMT for 9 years and I’ve never encountered anything like this,” he noted. “We acted with composure and professionalism in very strenuous circumstances and the results speak for themselves. The cooperation between first responders, the doctors, and later the ambulance teams, was impressive and resulted in two lives being saved. It will take me a long time to fully appreciate what we just accomplished.”
The baby is in stable condition, reacting to her surroundings and lively, with her skin thankfully back to its normal hue.
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