Every woman’s nightmare turns to joy at the snow

Natasha Warlond went into labour early during a blizzard on the road to Omeo from Hotham ski resort in Australia. Time was tight and the risk of post partem haemorrhage was high.

This, dear reader, is the tale of Hotham’s first non indigenous baby delivery in history as told through the eyes of the ‘ambo’ and the ‘hubby’.

The Ambo at Hotham Medical Centre – Craig Jenkins.

I was paged at 0315 in the morning to attend a pregnancy/imminent delivery code 1 (lights and sirens). The caller was in a car, and unfortunately the phone had dropped out before the dispatcher could get a location. I put on my uniform and walked down to the med centre awaiting further instructions.

The couple, with their 2 young boys, had been staying at Dinner Plain for a week, and decided to stay an extra night. At 0100 Natasha had had some abdomen cramping, and soon after her waters broke. Their initial plan was to drive to Omeo Hospital, but when they rang they were told not to come there as they didn’t deliver babies there, so they headed towards Bright instead.

Natasha’s contractions became stronger and closer together, which is why they decided to call 000. It had puked 20+ cm of snow earlier in the night, and the roads were treacherous. The weather had settled somewhat, but it was initially very foggy with very poor visibility.

When they drove past the main carpark they saw me standing in front of the ambulance and pulled into the carpark. I could hear a loose chain banging against the car as they drove towards me. I asked if they might be looking for a paramedic…. They both looked very relieved to see me. They said they were headed to Bright, and asked my thoughts.

At this time Natasha was having another contraction and I suggested we should head into the med centre to assess where things were at.

Inside we woke up the 2 nurses and 2 Dr’s with our situation. For half a second we contemplated loading towards Wangaratta, but on examination the Dr suggested that we weren’t going anywhere!!! Unfortunately we only had very basic pain relief that could be used for childbirth. So we got Natasha onto that.

I found an obstetrics kit in the ambulance and we prepared to deliver Hotham Medical Centre’s first ever baby!

I worked as a nurse previously and had delivered plenty of babies in the safe confines of a delivery suite. In my 16 years as a paramedic I haven’t delivered a baby in the ambulance. I did, however, get very involved in the delivery of my own daughter 6 months ago.

Natasha told us she had previously bled when she had her two boys. This made everyone very nervous as we all knew how quickly things could deteriorate with a post partem haemorrhage. We also only had warm towels out of the drier to keep the baby warm post delivery.

The Dr couple, Gerry and Tracey, stayed with Natasha while nurses Amy and Jen and myself prepared for the baby’s arrival. As the contractions grew stronger and closer we waited with nervous anticipation, hoping and praying that everything would go smoothly.

After nearly 4 hours of labour, little Christian entered the world at 0449. As he delivered everyone held their breath waiting for his first cries. Everyone was so relieved when he gave a strong cry, and his skin colour changed from blue to pink as he took his first breaths. What a relief!

Now to make sure Mum was ok. Thankfully there was minimal bleeding and Mum was fine. The chord was cut and little Christian was placed on Natasha’s chest. Such a cute little man. Everyone was overjoyed. Personally, I just love babies, and the miracle of new life is just such a beautiful thing.

I was on such a high, and felt so emotional. I didn’t cry as such, but could feel the happy tears welling. I am a bit of an emotional guy I admit. Such a relief that everything had gone smoothly, and that our little Hotham man had arrived safely.

We kept Natasha warm with bub for an hour and prepared to transport her to Wodonga for ongoing management. During this time I removed the broken chain off Dave’s car. Most of the wires on the back were broken jagged pieces sticking out everywhere.

Its a miracle that they hadn’t shredded the tyre!

At 0600 we loaded Mum and bub towards Wodonga. On the way out of the village I saw some ski patrollers getting ready for the day in the office. I called them up to tell them we were going off the hill, and that we had delivered a baby at the med centre. Everyone was blown away.

We met another vehicle in Harrietville and transferred our patients over to them. On return everyone was buzzing! We asked around if anyone could recall a baby being born at Hotham. Nobody had ever heard of one. Maybe Christian was Hotham’s first baby. Definitely a first for the med centre and quite possibly an altitude record also!

BabyChristian has certainly made his mark as a little Hotham legend!!! Everybody is talking about it and there is such a great vibe around the whole story! There is even talk of naming a run after him. Christian’s Cruise has a nice ring to it I reckon.

The Hubby and Dad – David Warlond

We had originally planned to have baby Christian Brian Hotham Warlond at the Royal Womens Hospital in Melbourne in mid July. Instead Tash woke me up two weeks early in the early hours of the morning. At first I left our two boys behind because I thought I would drop her off at Omeo and come back for the boys.

We rang Omeo and they said go to Bairnsdale so we grabbed the kids while Natasha packed everything up mid contractions and I dug the snow out from around the car and put on chains for the blizzard. Then we rang an ambulance as we weren’t sure what to do, we had heard their was a midwife in Bright.

Due to the snow chains we were driving slowly it took us 40 minutes to drive 14 kilometres and all this time we were on the phone with the ambos. We eventually got to the Main Carpark at Hotham where we say Craig the paramedic. We all went in to the medical centre and I was in a neighbouring room with the boys. Nick, they youngest stayed awake but Bogdan the older slept through it all.

Mum’s screams scared Nick and I was going to say it was a cow but I ended up telling him the truth. The staff did what they could to make them feel good and both of them were interested once the baby arrived.

Natasha was awesomely cool throughout the labour, on painkillers. The staff were amazing though we were worried about giving birth as Natasha had a bad bleed when giving birth to Nick so we thought there may be a repeat.

Luckily all went well and thanks to Natasha’s amazing effort and the team at Hotham she gave birth at 4.49am on July 1 to baby Christian.

Craig looked at the car’s tyres and said if we had of continued we would have punctured the tyre and who knows what would have happened.

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