DRIVER PROFILE
FANCY TAKING UP MIDWIFERY? T
ALK TO KEVIN!
Yes, we’ve all heard loads of stories about babies being born in the back of a cab... nonetheless, when it happens to you, the whole event takes on a new dimension. Take Kevin Drinkeld, for example... 37-year old Kevin has been a private hire driver for 14 years, driving for Newcastle-upon-Tyne firm Fenham Taxis. He’s a family man as well, who is married to Sara and has two sons, 12-year old Connor and Owen, six. So he knows all about having babies around the place.
However, on the 8th of September 2010 Kevin’s ordinary day turned somewhat extraordinary. At
approximately 2pm he picked up a couple from Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Hospital to take them home. The woman was heavi- ly pregnant, and as it transpires the hospital had sent her home, having decreed that she was “not ready yet”.
Less than an hour later the base contacted Kevin to pick up the same couple from the address at which he had dropped them off. Kevin takes up the story: “When I got to the house the husband came out with a towel. My first thought was that his wife’s waters must have broken. “As they got in the car, his wife lay down across the back seat
against her husband. Then within 90 sec- onds of our setting off I heard a baby cry! I thought I was hearing things... then I heard another cry so I looked over the seat when I stopped at the lights, and I saw the baby lying on the back seat of my car. “You would never have thought the woman had just given birth.
There was not a lot of screaming or noise; it all happened so quick- ly that even the husband didn’t give me any notice that the baby was on its way.
FOOT DOWN
“So when the lights changed I put my foot down to get them back to the hospital as quickly as possible. My main concern was for
the baby’s health, so when I got to the hos- pital I parked the car outside the front doors of the main entrance, ran straight into the reception and told them what had hap- pened, so they rang up to Maternity to get a midwife down to the car to see to the baby and mother.
“When I went back to my car there was a doctor attending to the woman on the back seat. Mother and baby were kept in hospital overnight; the family had a baby girl. Fortu- nately everybody was fine after their experi- ence.
“The local newspaper wanted to run an article about the event, but the family didn’t allow it
as they didn’t want anybody to know their baby had been born in the back of a taxi! I don’t know why, but I never knew the names of the people involved anyway.
“All I do know is that both the mum and the dad – and the baby girl – did a very good job, and all’s well that ends well.” Well, you
know...all in a day’s work for our trade. One wonders how a bus or coach driver, or train conduc- tor, might have coped under similar circum- stances. As for Kevin Drinkeld, he just got back in his car and got on with the rest of the day... but a day with a somewhat different twist.
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0800 142 2815 PAGE 34 PHTM NOVEMBER 2010
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