All in a nights work...???

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I have been working nights on the front end of the week. So Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night.  These nights are much slower than I am use to compared to the weekend night to say the very least.

Well this week was a great week at work.  During my Monday night/Tuesday morning shift things were going beyond slow!  Pass the toothpicks for my eyes slow.  And then it happened...the phone rang. 

At 2:56 am to be exact.  The fire dispatcher Sherri answered the 911 line, put in a call and says  "I need EMD on 911 for a childbirth."  First let me explain  EMD...this stands for Emergancy Medical Dispatch.  You have to be certified in order to EMD.  Well  lucky me...I am EMD certified.  This certification has allowed me to walk people through the steps of CPR over the phone if needed and other emergant situations where immediate medical care is needed.

So we get quiet a few childbirth calls in the center and 99% of them are just silly.  When you ask "How far apart are your contractions?"  and the caller responds  20 minutes!  You sometimes just want to say Ok well hop in your car, call a cab, call a friend, your gonna be fine your just having a baby.

October 13, 2009 at 2:56 am was gonna turn out to be a whole different story.  So I grab the EMD cards (cards that give you step by step directions for different medical situations) and pick up the line.  I hear I calm male on the line who says that his wife is having a baby and they had just returned home from the hospital after being sent home from the labor and delivery ward.  This is their second baby and contractions were several minutes apart.  So Sherri gets the fire department and ambulance headed out to them. I ask dad if he can see the head of the baby to which he tell me no.  So I think ok..fire department is gonna get there..we are just gonna time some contractions and sit tight.  Then I realize where this family lives....out in the country about a good 15 minutes at least from the hospital.  Ok no biggie they have lights and sirens right!

I then hear mom start to have a contraction and dad suddenly started to get excited and tell me that he can see the head!  Oh my gosh!  We are having a baby right now.  In the matter of 20 seconds the BABY was completely delivered! Dad did a great job.  He continued to follow my directions, located a shoestring to tie her cord and got her wrapped up and in her mommy's arms quickly.  It then took fire and EMS another 10 minutes to get there. 

Baby Isabella Johannsen  entered the world at 3:01 am just 5 minutes after her dad dialed 911.  It is  a night I will never forget, the night I helped a dad bring his daughter into the world.  It may have been over the phone but I was there and I heard her very first cry and it was amazing!

Above is a picture of the balloons and flowers my co-workers brought in to celebrate the next night.  I am also being rewarded with an offical STORK pin.  The PD officers who have earned them wear them on their uniforms, I have yet to decide what I am going to do with mine.  Mainly I plan on cherishing it.

The joke in the dispatch center is that I can't even get a boy baby over the phone!  It's ok with me...GIRLS ROCK!