Dad delivers baby with help over phone from paramedic

A BABY girl was delivered by her doting dad as he took step-by-step instructions from a firefighter over the phone.

Paramedic Brian Devlin talked the shocked father safely through the birth shortly after his wife went into labour.

The 29-year-old firefighter from Lucan was taking 999 calls at the dispatch centre in Dublin’s Tara Street Fire Station when the man called for an ambulance at around 2am.

“He said his wife had gone into labour and thought she would give birth quite quickly because she had on her previous children,” said Mr Devlin.

“But I don’t think either of us were expecting her to give birth quite so quickly.”

The firefighter dispatched an ambulance to the couple’s home in Rathgar and told the caller to ring back if he thought the baby was on its way.

“I thought that would be the last I’d hear from him,” he said.

“No more than two to three minutes later, he called back and told me he could see the baby’s head starting to come through.”

Although Mr Devlin has delivered three babies in his four-year career, it was the first time he has ever given instructions over the phone.

“He did everything I asked him and I could hear him calming his wife down at the same time, which was pretty good,” he said.

“When the baby came out I got him to make sure she was breathing and that she was clean and warm and kept with her mother until the ambulance got there.”

Within minutes of the new arrival, the ambulance took the mother and baby to hospital.