A mum from Newark has named her baby boy after the emergency call handler who helped him be delivered.
Rachel Wheeler, 31, went into labour on 12 September 2017 at her home in Newark and realised she wasn’t going to make it to the hospital. Her sister Gemma called 999 and our call taker Kyle Thacker came to the rescue to talk her and the girls’ mum Tracey through delivering baby Kyle.
This week baby Kyle met his namesake for the first time and Technician Joanne Piercy; who is one of the ambulance crew members who arrived just after he was born, and took him and his mum to hospital.
At the reunion mum-of-two Rachel said she thinks it was meant to be that Kyle helped her son into the world as they had previously considered calling the four-month-old Kyle a couple of weeks before his birth.
She said: “We were trying to find names that go with his middle name Thomas and had thought of Kyle but it hadn’t stuck. When Kyle said that was his name we all knew it was meant to be.”
Baby Kyle’s birth was thankfully a smooth one but the family were very grateful to have call handler Kyle’s calm voice on the end of the phone talking them through what to do.
Rachel said: “Everyone said I looked really calm throughout the birth but I was so scared. I was so relieved when I heard him scream for the first time.”
Kyle said he was also pleased to hear the new-born’s cries. He said: “You are always anxious on the other end of the phone when you are helping someone deliver a baby in case anything goes wrong, so it’s great when you hear them crying. In this case a screaming baby is a healthy baby.”
He added: “I became a call handler to help people and it was great to meet baby Kyle and his family today, and see how healthy and happy he is.”
Listen to the moment that baby Kyle was born and named.