An emergency services dispatcher has helped deliver premature twins over the phone who were born within just six minutes of their parents calling for an ambulance.
Last summer, Chance Chipman, an emergency services dispatcher, received a call that he had always hoped would happen. His day was proceeding normally when Matt Harris called, saying that his wife was pregnant with twins and that they would not be able to make it to the hospital in time. Matt and his wife Mary were packing to go to the hospital when she told him that the babies were coming.
“I was like what do you mean by that? That’s when the stress spiked obviously”, Matt said.
Matt had twice given the wrong address to the ambulance because he was so stressed, and barely two minutes after he made the call, the first baby was delivered.
Chipman, the dispatcher, stayed on the phone with Matt the entire time and walked him through steps to ensure that the baby was breathing properly. When the second baby started to show, it became apparent that she was in breech position.
Chipman talked Matt through this problem, too, but when the baby girl was born, she was not breathing. Relying on his training, Chipman told Matt to turn the baby onto her side, where, thankfully, she began to cough and breathe.
Minutes after the delivery, the ambulance arrived to transport the parents and babies to the hospital.
“For the rest of the day we kinda just looked at each other and were like, can you even believe that happened? It was incredibly bonding”, Mary said.
“Every dispatcher hopes and prays that they have a baby call”
Babies Lilian and Clara were born at just 33 weeks and were taken to the neonatal intensive care unit after their birth.
“To be honest, it could have went a hundred different ways but we’re just so blessed and so happy that it went the way it did, you know that they’re healthy and good”, Matt said. “We’re just so grateful”.
“I think every birth is a miracle, I think kids are miracles, and these were just a little more tender. Our miracle’s that everything worked out and fell into place for these two”, he went on.
Chipman said that he has always wanted to help deliver a baby over the phone in his role as a dispatcher. “Over the course of the years, every dispatcher hopes and prays that they have a baby call”, he said.
He also had the crew contact the hospital to ensure the twins were doing well.
“It’s very rewarding. Here in dispatch, we don’t very often get a positive call or a positive situation. So to have a positive like that you just delivered two twins on the phone and they’re doing healthy and the mom’s doing good, it is so rewarding”, Chipman said. “I would do it again”.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “Congratulations to Matt, Mary and their whole family on the birth of their baby twins! It is amazing to hear these stories of parents and medical professionals coming together to help babies in crisis”.
