Four Warren EMTs had a Valentine’s Day they won’t soon forget, when they helped a Warren woman give birth in the back of an ambulance pulled over on the Wampanoag Trail.
It was a quiet morning in Warren when the call came in around 10 a.m. from a Davis Street woman, 28.
“She said her contractions were three to five minutes apart, so I knew we didn’t have much time,” said Fire Chief Al Galinelli.
The chief hopped in his truck and headed to the house, as did EMTS Matt Primiano, Russ Silviera, Sue Annarummo and rescue driver Charles Sweet.
When they arrived, the woman told Chief Galinelli she wanted to go to Newport Hospital. But the chief knew they’d never make it.
“I thought it’d be be tight getting to Women and Infants” in Providence, he said. As it turned out, he was way off.
Dismissing Newport Hospital, the EMTs loaded the woman into the rescue truck and took off through Barrington. By the time they got to the Wampanoag Trail, the woman’s screams were coming so fast that the chief knew the birth wasn’t far off. By the time Mr. Sweet got to the WPRO radio station, they knew they had to pull over — the baby was coming.
“We were bouncing around so much in the back that we had to pull over so we wouldn’t be bouncing when the baby came,” said the chief.
It didn’t take long. At precisely 10:11 a.m. about a minute after they pulled over, the woman delivered the baby, a healthy girl. Chief Galinelli later found out she weighed seven pounds, eight ounces. They gave her oxygen, suctioned her off and covered her in blankets before starting the rescue back up and driving her and her mother at Women and Infants hospital.
Though Chief Galinelli has delivered three babies over the years, it was the first time for his crew. His volunteers and EMTs train for such occasions but never know if they’ll use the knowledge; in this case, they did and everything worked out perfectly, he said.
“They really did a great job, kept their composure,” said the chief. “I was like the doctor overseeing everything, but they did all the work. They never had a problem.”
By noon or so, they were back in Warren, and the chief took his four smiling crew members out to lunch at the Crossroads Pub to celebrate. It didn’t last long, though. Just after they started to eat, a rescue call came in, and two had to run out, lunches mostly uneaten.
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