After suddenly going into labor at her daughter’s school, a Dallas woman successfully gave birth thanks to the help of a teacher on the scene who had the know-how to deal with the situation.
Loren Carcamo, a pregnant mother who expected to deliver her third child the next day, was picking up her sick six-year-old daughter at her elementary school when she suddenly felt labor pains, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Soon, Carcamo’s water broke, and she was taken to the school nurse’s office, the Morning News. Tylar Krause, who worked as the school’s nurse, felt some trepidation but tried to fall back on her training.
“I’ve never delivered a baby. I watched one birth during nursing school,” Krause told Today. “So I was like, ‘OK, let me just try to remember what they did.’ I was panicking.”
Almost miraculously, one of the school’s teachers, Maria Perez Caraballo, had just the right background for the occasion, per the Morning News. Specifically, she had been an OBG-YN resident in her home country of Venezuela.
After being called to the nurse’s office and determining that the delivery would have to happen at the school, she reassured Carcamo, “Don’t worry, I was a medical doctor in my country and I delivered a lot of babies,” per Today.
Krause recalled that Perez’s presence completely changed the atmosphere in the room as the former medical professional took control of the situation, per Today.
“There was a general vibe of freak-out until Ms. Perez walked in,” she told NBCDFW. “She was so calm, collected. She was like, ‘Let’s do this.’”
Eventually, paramedics arrived and along with Perez and Krause, they were able to guide Carcamo through the birthing process, per the Morning News. The outlet reported that after a brief scare, the delivery was successful:
Baby Leire came out purple, wrapped in the umbilical cord. Within seconds, though, she started turning pink and let out a cry.
…
The school staff clapped and cried, congratulating Carcamo on her strength. Paramedics wheeled mother and newborn through the campus lobby en route to the hospital. As they rolled by, they passed Lorette, now a big sister, her eyes wide.
Perez, who left her home and career behind to come to the United States, said she was grateful for the chance to put her old skills to work again.
“I came to this country, and I studied a lot to become a teacher, so it was like I said goodbye to those days in medicine.” she told NBCDFW, “It was really amazing. I feel really happy to have had one more experience in this science area that I worked a lot in.”
And no one is more grateful for Perez’s presence that day than Carcamo, who recalled how the ordeal was made easier not just by Perez’s medical skill but also by her kind and calming demeanor.
“I feel like I was with a real friend, with my doctor. So, when she started talking to me, the scary part just went away,” she told Today.
You can follow Michael Foster on Twitter at @realmfoster.
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