MDA paramedic delivers his own baby in middle of shift
"From the day my wife found out she was pregnant, our sons laughed and raised the possibility that I would be on duty," Abraham said.
By DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDS(photo credit: MAGEN DAVID ADOM ISRAEL)
A Magen David Adom (MDA) Emergency Medicine Technician (EMT) had a unique reason to be delighted with his first birth on shift recently: the baby delivered was his own daughter.When Abraham Ivri of Shadmot Mehola started working as an EMT in the Gilboa region about a month ago, his wife Reut was nervous. Having just entered her ninth month of pregnancy with their sixth child, she was worried that her husband would be on shift when the baby decided to make her entrance to the world.“From the day my wife found out she was pregnant, our sons laughed and raised the possibility that I would be on duty,” Abraham said, according to a press release by MDA.Reut’s fears were realized just over a week ago on Saturday night when she went into labor – while Abraham was on shift. She called Abraham, who immediately called MDA to have the closest ambulance dispatched to attend ReutAs Mati Karmi and Orit Ohana, an MDA volunteer paramedic and family friend, were arriving at the couple’s home and assessing Reut, Abraham was frantically scrambling to find a last-minute replacement for his shift. It became a race against time as the team began to evacuate Reut to the hospital for the delivery. As Abraham, having found a replacement, raced to meet them there the call came in: the birth was already well advanced, and the baby was on the way. The MDA team was forced to stop at the side of the road, where Abraham was finally able to catch up to them, jumping into the ambulance just in time to assist his wife as she gave birth.“I arrived just as the baby girl was arriving, and I actually did my first birth with the MDA – when the woman giving birth was my wife. It was stressful and exciting together – both because it was a first birth, medically I wanted to make sure everything was going as well as possible, and also because it was my baby. [I had] mixed emotions. I experienced the event in an extraordinary way – both as an EMT and as a father.”MDA paramedic Orit Ohana said: “Recently, Abraham talked a lot about the fact that he is afraid of missing the birth, because of the shifts. That evening he called me and told me it was happening and asked me to hurry to Reut. We were in touch with him throughout the trip, we wanted him to be a partner in the process and to our delight he arrived at just the right time and just jumped into the ambulance when the active birthing process began.“He functioned at that moment as an EMT and as a husband – who on the one hand takes care of the medical aspects and on the other hand encourages and embraces. He was very excited, and we were all happy that Abraham was the one who assisted his wife and that he managed to arrive on time.”Abraham added: “When they entered the maternity ward at the hospital, and I was in an MDA uniform, the nurses did not understand why I entered the room. It took them a while to understand that I was both the father and the EMT who delivered the baby.”
