Baby born on Johannesburg pavement ‘doing well’
“It was 19:15 and there was no-one around. I had one more contraction, and then I pushed out the baby. I sat on the pavement with my baby, he was alive, he was breathing.”
A one-month-old baby boy from Centurion who was born on the pavement of a Johannesburg street is a healthy, happy baby.
Hudson Tonking, the youngest of the family, decided to make his appearance unexpectedly three days before his due date, his mother Desiree said.
Desiree said her other two boys were both born 10 days after their due date, thus having to go into labour was the last thing on her mind when she had to drive to Johannesburg on the afternoon of 23 April.
“I run my own business and needed to collect something rather urgently in Johannesburg. My husband was not able to assist me with that.
“It happened on my way back from Johannesburg and it was about 17:00 when traffic came to almost a standstill due to a tanker that overturned on the highway.”
She said she wasn’t quite sure, but thought that she might be having contractions and called her husband. She started timing the contractions.
Her husband, George, a helicopter pilot for Bidvest Protea Coin, called friends who fly for Halo, a company that does evacuations. They said they would be on standby, however, would send paramedics with highway patrol so long to escort her through the traffic.
“The paramedics could not manage to get through the traffic though and I just shared my location with them and with my husband should something happen. By then I’d been having contractions for about an hour and a half which were eight minutes apart.
“We have planned to have a home birth, so I called the midwife and informed her of what was happening. And I started to look out for a hospital in the vicinity.”
She said by then the southbound highway opened up and she decided to take it.
“Genesis was the nearest hospital then, and my contractions were five to seven minutes apart. Suddenly my contractions were only two minutes apart and I took the first off-ramp I could find, which was Rivonia, close to Bowling Street.
“I kept driving, following my GPS towards Genesis. I only tried to remain safe.
“My husband had just called me to tell me the paramedics were following my location, when I had one major contraction. The GPS showed that I was about seven minutes away from the hospital, and it was around 18:30 by then.”
She said when she felt she could not keep it back anymore, she pulled over, and as she opened her car door, her water broke.
“It was 19:15 and there was no one around. I had one more contraction, and then I pushed out the baby. I sat on the pavement with my baby, he was alive, he was breathing.
“One of the paramedics called and I told him that my baby was born and well. When he asked me what his colour was, I said I couldn’t see because it was dark already.”
She said at that moment a vehicle drove past.
“It was a lady who said she thought I must have stopped to pick up a kitten because she heard something crying and thought she would assist me.
“I believe the Lord sent her, because I was praying right through the entire ordeal.”
She said the woman was just about to take her to the hospital when her husband arrived and took her there himself.
“At the hospital, they cut the chord and checked us, and all was well. Hudson’s colour was fine, he was breathing well, weighing 3,8kg.”
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