Ambulance late, PCR staff help woman deliver boy in Delhi

NEW DELHI: When an ambulance couldn’t reach its destination due to a traffic jam, a PCR van came to the rescue of a pregnant woman who gave birth to a baby boy inside the vehicle on Thursday.
Police received a distress call around 8.45pm and the caller told them that his wife was in labour and the ambulance hadn’t reached yet. The nearest police control room van, stationed at the Kapashera border, rushed to the house near Radha Swami Mandir in southwest Delhi.
“On reaching the spot, the PCR personnel found the pregnant woman sitting on the staircase of her house, screaming in labour pain. Her husband told us that he had dialled 102 for an ambulance, but it couldn’t arrive due to a traffic jam,” deputy commissioner of police (PCR) Anand Mishra said. The husband also said their financial condition wasn’t good and they could not afford a taxi/private ambulance, the DCP added.
The PCR vehicle left for the nearest hospital with the woman, her husband and mother-in-law. On the way, the woman delivered her baby. Both were later admitted to a hospital, police said.
A woman officer who was in the PCR van helped during the delivery. “We provide them with regular training on how to handle pregnant women, and in the past, too, we have managed many such cases,” Mishra said.
Last year, PCR vehicles had taken at least fivepregnant women and more than 16,000 injured people to hospital. An officersaid the PCR staff had also been trained on life-saving techniques.