An 11-month-old Kaitaia baby and a family member were rushed to hospital in a fire truck to save his life earlier this month.
The baby’s family member said it was around 2pm on August 5 when she went to check on him and knew immediately something was wrong.
“His lips started to go blue. I sorta panicked, picked him up and screamed at my sister and said he’s not breathing,” she said.
They called 111 and asked for an ambulance. The operator told her to perform CPR until help arrived but the baby began having a seizure.
An 11-month-old Northland baby and a family member were rushed to hospital in a fire truck to save his life earlier this month. (Source: 1News)
“It seemed like forever before anyone came. I was shocked because it was the fire brigade and not the paramedics and my sister was actually yelling outside ‘we don’t want you, we want the paramedics’, but they sort of just passed her and came straight in.
“The baby had stopped fitting by then, before they walked in, and he went still again, there was no movement, no nothing,” she said.
Crew from the Kaitaia Volunteer Fire Brigade were first on the scene and immediately gave the baby status one, which is an immediate threat to life.
Senior station officer Colin Kitchen, a 56-year veteran, was in attendance.
“With our ex-ambulance officer in the brigade and the officer in charge we decided to take action immediately,” he said.
They put the baby and the family member in the fire truck and with the sirens blaring drove them to nearby Kaitaia Hospital — with the ex-paramedic/brigade member cradling the unresponsive baby in his arms.
The baby’s family member said it was a bit of a blur.
“It was fast, it was a fast trip up there.”
Kitchen said they contacted the hospital so they were ready to take over when they arrived.
When they were transporting the baby to hospital a message came through from the ambulance watch room to remain at the scene, but as they were nearly at the hospital they continued on, Kitchen said.
“I believe our actions saved that little bubba,” said Kitchen, who added they had a good relationship with the ambulance service.
The family member said she backed their decisions all the way.
“I take my hat off to you guys (firefighters) and 100% back you all the way because without you he wouldn’t be here today, I’d be attending a tangi.
“So thank you from the bottom of my heart, ” she said to the volunteer firefighters who attended.
St John has one ambulance at a 24-hour station in Kaitaia and another at Taipa which is manned 12 hours each day. They also have volunteers at Pukenui.
In a statement it said it had a memorandum of understanding that defines when a Fire and Emergency unit may be dispatched.
“In this situation the closest Hato Hone St John unit was 15 minutes away responding from the Doubtless Bay station as the Kaitaia unit was already attending another emergency call at the time.
“It is for this reason that the Fire and Emergency NZ First Response Unit was responded to this incident. Given the close proximity to hospital and the severity of the patient Fire and Emergency NZ elected to transport them to Kaitaia Hospital.
“This is not something that commonly occurs and a decision was made that was felt to be in the best interest of the patient at the time. We value the support of our colleagues at Fire and Emergency New Zealand around Aotearoa who are fully trained to administer basic life support and provide urgent care.”