A pregnant woman gave birth on the bathroom floor of a McDonald’s restaurant on the way to hospital in Scunthorpe – with the help of an off duty midwife from the drive thru.
Mum Sarah Meek and her partner Josh Hall, both 21, stopped for food on their way to hospital in Scunthorpe, Lincs, but finished by becoming proud parents to Alfie Samuel Hall, who weighed seven pounds eight ounces.
Second-time Mum Sarah had been having contractions since around 3 pm yesterday and was in Goole District Hospital, East Yorks, from around 7.30 pm for a home birth-style delivery.
New parents Josh Hall and Sarah Meek with their newborn son Alfie Samuel Hall and a member of the ambulance crew after Alfie was born on the floor of a McDonald’s restaurant in Goole
But with her contractions not getting any closer and with no significant dilation the decision was made for Sarah to travel 27 miles to the larger Scunthorpe General Hospital for help with the birth overnight.
Josh, Sarah and Josh’s mum Michelle, 38, began the journey to Scunthorpe when they stopped at McDonald’s for food around 10 pm when Sarah’s water suddenly broke.
Dock worker Josh said luckily at the drive-thru in the car in front of them was a midwife from Goole Hospital who’d just finished her shift.
Alfie Samuel Hall, born at 10.20pm after his mother’s water broke at a McDonald’s restaurant
He said: ‘We stopped because Sarah said she was starving, but then then she said she needed to go to the loo, I said could she wait, but she couldn’t.
‘We went to the toilet and I was helping her and then I panicked because her eyes just shot open and she stared at me right into my eyes like a pair of daggers and said ‘oh I need to push’.
‘So, I had Sarah’s phone in one hand and my phone in the other, on her phone I was speaking to the midwife, and on my phone I was speaking to my mother because she was outside with the food.’
Josh said the midwife raced back to the scene as he called for an ambulance as well to come and help.
The young family stopped at McDonald’s after Sarah said she was starving en route to hospital
The McDonald’s in Goole, East Yorks, where Alfie Samuel Hall was born last night at 10.20 pm
He said: ‘I felt so bad because there was a bloke who worked there and he had just cleaned the toilets, and my God it was a mess afterwards.
‘With Sarah, her waters broke and midwife and my mum both came into the toilet. They got Sarah laid down on the floor, and I couldn’t see it from where I was, but they said you could see the baby’s head.
‘The midwife Jo was there and she and my mum helped Sarah deliver the baby, the ambulance was giving me advice too.
McDonalds staff Jared Power and Beth Leeman in Goole, where Alfie Samuel Hall was born
‘Alfie arrived about 10.20 pm, he had the cord wrapped around him but it wasn’t too tight so the midwife sorted that out. He was all alright.
‘Everything was fine and we just had to wait for the ambulance crew so we had something to cut the cord with, which my mum did.’
Josh said he went with Sarah, and their new boy Alfie, with the midwife in the ambulance to the hospital in Scunthorpe. Mum and baby are doing fine, he said.
Josh and Sarah, from Howden, East Yorks, are hoping to get Alfie home soon to meet his sister Kacey-Leigh Marie Michelle, aged three.
A spokesman for Yorkshire Ambulance said they were called at 10.09pm last night but that the midwife who happened to be there delivered the baby before crews arrived.