A WOMAN who gave birth to a baby girl in the passenger seat of her car at a service station during this morning’s wild weather has joked her daughter might be impatient in later life.
Joanne Fealy and her partner Saul Yarran were making a quick dash from their home in Greenfields to King Edward Memorial Hospital in Subiaco after three hours of contractions during the early hours of the morning.
Ms Fealy said as they driving, the contractions became stronger and she realised things were “moving very quickly” so her partner drove in the emergency lane to get her to the Success service station, where the plan was to call an ambulance and wait for help to arrive.
But Ms Fealy said despite trying to keep her daughter in, she had other ideas.
As a result a service station employee, off-duty police officer and a man from the Fremantle Port Authority had a morning to remember when they found themselves helping deliver Aliesha Louise Yarran in the car.
South Metropolitan Tactical Investigations Group Detective Senior Constable Anthony Pymm had finished putting fuel in his car at the service station on his way to work and was about to pay when he found himself helping with the birth.
Console operator Helen Roughley said the father ran into the service station yelling that his wife’s water had broken and they needed an ambulance.
Ms Roughley said when she got to the car the baby’s head was crowning and the mother was yelling “it’s coming”.
“It was cold, windy and raining and I didn’t even know her name and I was telling her to get her clothes off,” Ms Roughley said.
She held the baby’s head, helped deliver her and then wrapped her up in a jacket.
“You know you have to protect the baby but we had nothing to clamp the cord and we had to keep the baby warm,” she said.
Ms Fealy said she had read about unusual births in magazines, such as a husband delivering a baby on the side of a road or in a taxi, but never thought it would happen to her.
“I’ve got a pretty good story about how she was born and how she made a quick entrance into the world,” she said.
“I am really grateful for the people who helped.
“I was a bit frightened that my baby would roll out on the floor and I was thinking what was I going to do.”
Her 13-month-old and two-and-a-half year old daughters were also in the car, and Ms Fealy said she was trying to keep as quiet as she could.
She said her older daughter was usually active but she was just standing in her booster seat watching.
“I tried to hold my baby in, I tried not to push but it was unbearable,” Ms Fealy said.
Det Snr Const Pymm said that once the birth took place he checked that mum and baby were breathing.
He said it was a quick birth and despite his exciting morning, he still got to work on time.
It was the first time he had helped deliver a baby through his line of work and he admitted he was happy to help.
“It is not every day you go to a service station to get fuel and end up rendering assistance to help deliver a baby,” he said.