MDA PARAMEDIC DELIVERS BABY IN AN AMBULANCE IN HAITI

Romeo Rodolsko, MDA Eilat region paramedic, never imagined that the third birth credited to the account of the number of his deliveries would occur thousands of kilometers away from Israel, in far-off Haiti. Rodolsko, member of the MDA delegation at "Notre Dame" hospital in the town of Petit Goave, had already finished his 18 hour shift and was about to leave the hospital when an additional call was received from a village near the hospital regarding a woman having labor pains in her 40th week of pregnancy and was scheduled for a Caesarian section. Romeo, accompanied by a doctor from the mission, drove urgently in an ambulance to bring the woman having contractions to the hospital.  

"On my way there, I was very tense on account of the report that the birth involved a Caesarian operation. When we reached the house, we found the woman in labor, writhing in pain. The doctor said that we had to transfer her urgently to the operating room at the hospital because the birth process had already begun and the baby's head, which was already emerging from the mother's uterus, was apparently stuck.  We needed abundant kindnesses from Heaven for the birth to proceed safely," Romeo reconstructed. The ambulance drove over dirt roads in order to get the woman to the hospital as fast as possible, but just as it was at the hospital gates, the baby came out into the air of the world, all blue. "I stopped the ambulance and slowly finished the birth process in seconds and minutes, which seemed like an eternity in my eyes. I saw how the baby's coloring changed from blue to pink and he broke out into a cry and began to move. I calmed down when the baby cried. We placed the baby on the mother's abdomen with the umbilical cord still connecting them and brought them into the operating room to detach the umbilical cord."

The expectant mother, who was rushed to the hospital, gave birth to a fine, healthy son - her fourth boy.  " Most of the time, she just sits there indifferent, but when she sees me, a broad smile spreads across her face, making me glad that I was able to be of help in Haiti, an impoverished country stricken with pain and bereavement, to bring new life."  This is how Romeo sums up the birth experience.