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Craigavon hospital healthcare worker helps deliver baby in car park

The baby was born in the car park of Craigavon Area Hospital. Picture by Mal McCann
The baby was born in the car park of Craigavon Area Hospital. Picture by Mal McCann The baby was born in the car park of Craigavon Area Hospital. Picture by Mal McCann

A healthcare worker at a Covid-19 ward at Craigavon Area Hospital helped deliver a baby during her lunch break.

Colette McAlinden (56) was reading a book in her car in the hospital car park when she heard screaming and a man came running towards her seeking help for his partner.

"I went towards him and saw that there was a lady in the front of his small van, very heavily pregnant, crying and in pain," she told the Belfast Telegraph.

"I'm only a ward assistant, I have no medical training at all.

"We were right beside where the ambulances parked their vans. So I told the dad to run there and get help and I rang 999. The mum was telling me that the baby was coming."

Ms McAlinden was guided by a 999 operator who told her to "look out for the baby's head and I could see it".

But as the baby girl arrived, she "did not look a good colour and was not breathing".

"The umbilical cord was around the baby's neck.

"I told the dispatcher I was scared and she told me calmly to rotate the baby out of the umbilical cord and then check her airways, that I could do it.

"I was so frightened and at that precise moment the ambulance just appeared and the paramedics took over.

"...And then we heard the best sound ever, that little baby girl crying. It was so emotional. I'll never forget that sound until the day I die."

Ms McAlinden later rang the maternity ward and was told mother and baby were doing well.