A 39-year-old Ho Chi Minh City woman delivered a baby in a taxi on the way to hospital last week after being stuck in traffic.
At around 9am October 22, Nguyen Thi Kim Phuong of Binh Tan District began to feel contractions starting and rang up her husband, Nguyen Thanh Long, who works as a deliverer nearby.
A few minutes later they were in a Vinasun taxi and planned to go to Hung Vuong Hospital, where Long could use his insurance.
But the vehicle soon got stuck in a frenzy of bikes and cars. They decided to go to Trieu An Hospital, which was close to where they were.
The driver turned on all his lights to signal an emergency and yelled at people to make way but all to no avail.
Feeling the labor pains coming, Phuong lay on the back seat. In an hour the pains got stronger and she felt the baby coming out. She could feel the head jutting out first and then the whole tiny body.
“I’m done!” Phuong shouted in fear on seeing the tiny, blood-covered bundle of life she had just give birth to. By then it was around 11am, almost two hours since they had left home.
It took another 30 minutes to finally arrive at the hospital.
The baby was pale, its umbilical cord was uncut, she had stopped breathing, and her heart had stopped beating.
“A doctor examined and the baby and said it had stopped breathing,” Long told Tuoi Tre at his home in Binh Tan District Thursday.
“I was panic-stricken.”
Luckily, after a few minutes of emergency aid right in the taxi, the baby began to regain color. She began to breathe herself and her pulse was back to normal.
On being told the baby’s heart had started beating again, Long felt a huge surge of relief. The baby weighed 2.75 kg.
Long said he is grateful to the taxi driver whose name he does not remember. He and his wife had taken little money but the driver took it, saying “It’s ok.”
Dr Nguyen Huu Nhan, head of the emergency department at the HCMC Hospital of Pediatrics, said every year 10-30 child patients are stuck in traffic jams on the way to hospital. Some of them do not make it alive.
“Whenever a child cannot make it due to a traffic jam, we feel very bad.”
Dr Do Quoc Huy, deputy director of Trung Vuong Hospital, said a patient whose breathing or heart stops needs to have emergency aid within four minutes.
But in HCMC that “golden time” is at the mercy of traffic.
Huy said people should call a professional emergency team by dialing 115 instead of calling up a taxi when there is a serious health problem.
The 115 emergency network covers HCMC and many neighboring districts and its team has successfully delivered many babies and given first aid to patients in serious condition.
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