‘You can do this!’: Ambo offers advice over the phone as woman gives birth roadside
Baby Ivy had a dramatic entry into the world. Photo: ABC
“I can’t, I can’t push!” Aimie Earl yelled. “You can do this, Aimie. You are doing it, okay? You’re doing so well,” came the calm reply.
Twenty-nine-year-old Aimie Earl was just days away from her due date when she found herself suddenly giving birth on the side of the road.
She had not felt right all day, and when the pain persisted the couple decided to head to hospital.
“I was timing them. They were only four or five minutes apart. So I told my husband I think we need to go,” Mrs Earl said.
The pair only made it a few minutes out of their hometown of Millfield in the NSW Hunter Valley when husband Jarrad Earl was forced to make a frantic triple-0 call.
Emergency call taker Kylie Crebert took the call, which can be heard in audio recently released by NSW Ambulance.
After the surprise birth, father Jarrad Earl gets to cut the cord. Photo: Earl family
“Can you see any part of the baby now?” Ms Crebert asked.
“I can feel her!” Mrs Earl called back.
“I’m going to tell you what to do,” the emergency worker told the couple.
She calmly walked them through the process until the baby was born just minutes later.
But jubilation was closely followed by terror when the parents realised the baby was not breathing.
“Do we see any obvious problems? Is the cord around her neck? No? So, what I want you to do is physically rub her back, up and down, with a towel for about 30 seconds,” Ms Crebert instructed.
A loud cry suddenly broke through the panic.
Ms Crebert offered a well earnt congratulations, before continuing instructions until an ambulance arrived.
She has delivered six babies in her 16 years’ experience working the emergency phone, but not once had she been able to put faces to the voices she helped.
On Tuesday she was offered a rare opportunity, meeting Mr and Mrs Earl, their son and new baby Ivy at their home.
“That’s just special, that was a wonderful moment for me,” Ms Crebert said.
“They did brilliantly, I was so proud of them. I really wanted to give them a cuddle at the end.
“You could tell they were worried and apprehensive. But they were so calm and just followed everything I asked them to do.
“It made my job a lot easier.”
Triple-0 operator Kylie Crebert meets the Earl family for the first time. Photo: ABC
Mrs Earl said they were glad they were able to thank Ms Crebert in person.
“If she wasn’t there on the other end guiding Jarrad through it I really don’t think we would have been able to do it,” she said.
“I think we both would have panicked.”
Mr Earl said it would become a bit of a pub yarn.
“You know when it’s her [Ivy’s] 21st or even her 18th, we can tell it then, and it’ll be a yarn that’ll go on forever.”
Ivy, while having a unique birth, is not alone.
In 2017 in New South Wales, 384 babies were born before their mums were able to reach hospital, with 240 of those helped by NSW Ambulance operators.
Baby Ivy will have a great story to tell when she is older. Photo: ABC
One hundred deliveries were done by paramedics, but 44 bubs arrived before the expectant mother could even reach the phone.
It is a job Ms Crebert may never want to give up.
“It reminds me why I do this job. There’s people there and at the end of the day that’s why I do it — to help people,” she said.
“And I get to actually make that real. It’s not just a phone call, there’s actually a family behind it.”