EMS dispatcher, Anita Thompson helped deliver the first baby inside of an Uber in East York.
With the assistance of an EMS dispatcher, a father delivered a baby girl in an Uber vehicle near a busy East York intersection.
On Jan. 18, Anita Thompson, a Toronto Emergency Medical Services dispatcher, had nearly finished her 12-hour shift when she got a call. An anxious father and his wife, who had gone into labour, were travelling in an Uber vehicle en route to a hospital. Thompson said the father explained that the Uber driver had pulled off the road at Overlea Boulevard and Thorncliffe Park Drive, so the ambulance sent by Thompson could rendezvous and assist the parents. Thompson described the scene inside the Uber.
“By the time (the father) looked, the baby was already coming out, so I instructed him to check if the baby was breathing and to tie off the umbilical cord,” Thompson said.
She added that the father and Uber driver used a shoelace to tie off the umbilical cord. She said when she overheard the baby girl’s cry, she anticipated that the baby would be fine. The Uber driver, Zahir Ahmad, told 680News that the mother and baby seemed fine and that he was pleased that the miracle had occurred in his vehicle.
Subsequently, Thompson received a pink Stork Pin, awarded by Gord McEachen, the deputy chief of program development and service quality at Toronto EMS.
Thompson said this birth en route followed an interesting pattern.
“I’ve only delivered girls,” Thompson said. “This was my eighth pink Stork Pin.”