A baby girl was delivered by her father today as he took step-by-step instructions from a fireman over the phone.
Paramedic Brian Devlin talked the shocked father safely through the birth shortly after his wife went into labour.
The 29-year-old fireman from Lucan was taking 999 calls at the dispatch centre in Dublin's Tara Street Fire Station when the man called for an ambulance at around 2am.
"He said his wife had gone into labour and thought she would give birth quite quickly because she had on her previous children," said Mr Devlin.
"But I don't think either of us were expecting her to give birth quite so quickly."
The fireman dispatched an ambulance to the couple's home in Rathgar and told the caller to ring back if he thought the baby was on its way.
"I thought that would be the last I'd hear from him," he continued.
"No more than two to three minutes later he called back and told me he could see the baby's head starting to come. He was initially a bit panicked, which was to be expected, but as soon as I got him to start doing things he knew he was making a difference and he calmed down."
Although Mr Devlin has delivered three babies in his four-year career, it was the first time he has ever given instructions over the phone.
"He did everything I asked him and I could hear him calming his wife down at the same time which was pretty good," he continued.
"When the baby came out I got him to make sure she was breathing and that she was clean and warm and kept with her mother until the ambulance got there."
"I was a little bit worried because the one thing that you are hoping to hear is the baby to cry. It took a few seconds for the baby to cry so there was that little gap when all sorts of things were running through my head. But thank God everything was okay."
"He did the hard part of the job as opposed to me doing it."
Within minutes of the new arrival, the ambulance arrived and took the new mother and baby to Mount Carmel Hospital.
It was all in a night's work for Mr Devlin, who delivered a baby on the street when he was just two weeks out of training.
"The lady walked out of her house to the ambulance but she couldn't hold on any longer and we had to deliver the baby just beside the ambulance," he added.
"You don't really get a chance to think about it until it's over. It's only then you realise what you've done."
PA