A young Law Enforcement officer had to become an instant midwife when a woman went into labour at the Cape Town station deck on Wednesday morning.
Even though he’d never delivered a baby before, Rafeeq Khan, 29, says he rolled up his sleeves and got to work when he found the mom of three ready to give birth to her fourth kid in a small office on the station deck.
“I work for the Transport Enforcement Unit and we are stationed on the station deck,” says Rafeeq, from Bo-Kaap.
“The mom from Dunoon had taken a taxi into the CBD as she was due to give birth on that day at Somerset Hospital.
“She says she felt contractions while in the taxi, but when she got out of the taxi the contractions started to intensify and she could feel the pain in her back.”
The woman sought help from a security guard who alerted Law Enforcement.
Rafeeq says: “We ran to the security office and while we contacted the ambulance, we could see they were not going to make it in time as the baby girl was already crowning.
“We are trained in first aid so the first thing we did was get on our gloves and make her comfortable.”
Rafeeq says as the woman screamed in pain, security guard Mchtitwa Toziwe from SSA security held her hand as they prepared for the baby’s arrival.
“We literally just had the towels she had in her bags and used that.”
“The mom was really strong and while we get trained for this, seeing it first hand is shell-shocking.
“After some pushing, the baby girl came out kicking and screaming and I made sure her airways weren’t blocked so she could breathe.
“We couldn’t cut the umbilical cord because we didn’t have a clamp,” he says.
Rafeeq says as the ambulance arrived, the brave mom got up and walked to the vehicle: “She was a champ. She cleaned herself up and walked to the ambulance. We were just happy the baby and mom were OK.”
The mother, who asked not to be identified, says her daughter weighs a healthy 3.3kg.
Rafeeq adds: “The doctors say she is healthy and I would like to thank the people that helped me.”