MORE accustomed to handling small puppies and tiny kittens, two SPCA staff members were thrust into the role of delivering a beautiful baby girl on Thursday morning.
Shelly Prinsloo and Wynand Strauss went through their ‘midwife crisis’ after a woman collapsed in front of them as they were driving out of Mzingazi.
‘We saw this lady fall to the ground and another woman trying to help her, so we made a U-turn to assist, expecting she had perhaps fainted,’ said Shelly.
‘But she was busy having her baby and by the time we got to her the child had already been born.
‘However, the newborn was blue in the face and battling to breathe so I managed to clear her airways and nose of fluids.
‘I then clamped the umbilical cord with a cable tie, by which time the little one was showing good signs of improvement.’
Shelly’s only experience of delivering babies was when she did an ambulance course 10 years ago.
‘But we only practised on dolls, so I was quite unprepared for the real thing.’
Wynand, meanwhile, admits he was ‘white and trembling’, staying out of the main action but recording it on camera and ‘providing the tools’.
‘Fortunately, traffic officer Freddie Horn drove by and quickly contacted EMRS who dispatched an ambulance and took Noxolo Ngubane (23) and her baby to RBM’s Mbonambi Clinic,’ said Shelly, who did not consider her job had been done.
‘I went back to the clinic in the evening to check that the new mother and baby were okay and to deliver some nappies.
‘The little one came into the world and the first garment she wore was an SPCA jacket!’
