A family has hailed the emergency teamwork at HRI after their baby boy was born in the car park after a very rapid labour turned to a birth.

Our Sexual Health Nurse, Lesley Pither and midwives Jessica Craner and Toni Patchitt ended up in tears of joy after the trauma on the tarmac.

Lesley was in the right place just at the right time after taking her Mum to have a  plaster removed, and heard mum-to-be, Rebecca screaming: "I'm having a baby." and trying to get her leggings off.

Together, with midwife Jessica  and student midwife Toni, produced towels and managed to catch and hang onto the little boy who was very, very slippy - to make a safe delivery.

Lesley, said: “I’d been at HRI with my mum who was having a pot off. We came out into the car park and all I heard was a blood curdling scream. There was a lady stood between two cars holding on to a wheelchair. I thought ‘Gosh what’s going on’ and then she screamed again at the top of her voice “I’m having a baby”.

“I rushed across the car park and could see she was taking her leggings off because she was frightened it was coming.

“The next thing I knew the baby just came – and her partner and I had to catch him. It was tricky holding on to him as he was still very wet, so we just clung on. I was trying to clear his face and then thankfully Jessica and Toni appeared with towels.  They removed the placenta cord from around his neck and then he gasped and cried – I was so relieved.

“I must admit I cried – it was really emotional, but I knew once the experts had arrived I could leave them and get back to my patient mum, who must have wondered what was happening."

Joseph's dad, John, told how the speedy delivery happened:

“Rebecca started with mild contractions at 8am, but we had a midwife’s appointment at 10am as were eight days overdue.

“We went along to the appointment, but at that stage it was still mild contractions so we went home.

“About an hour and a half later Rebecca’s contractions had progressed from very mild to extremely painful in a really short time, so we called the Birth Centre.

“Our midwife Jessica told us to get there as quickly and as safely as we could – it was a bit of a tense drive with my going as fast as I could without being dangerous. At one point Rebecca shouted at me to stop as she thought the baby was coming there and then.

"Somehow we made it to the main entrance where I ran in and asked security to call our midwife.

"I ran back to Rebecca to find her with another lady (that was our Lesley Pither). Rebecca just shouted out “catch the baby!”

A month on and dad John got in touch because he really wanted to send his and Rebecca's huge thanks to the midwives for their support.

“We just wanted to say how amazing our midwives have been. Jessica was our community midwife and she stayed with us throughout the whole pregnancy – it was really reassuring.

“It made such a difference, the whole team really is amazing and we’re so thankful.

“The NHS is such a priceless institution”.