A Good Samaritan who leapt into action in Newmarket’s Southlake hospital parking lot ended up delivering a baby girl right there on the spot after the expectant mom went into labour quickly.
Amanda Young, a York Region mom of two young daughters herself, was leaving the fracture clinic the morning of May 13, 2020, with daughter Talia, 11, who had a cast applied to her fractured left foot, when she heard the cries of a woman coming from across the main entrance parking lot.
“We were on our way out and we heard a woman crying and screaming, and I looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s what a woman in labour sounds like’,” Young said. “And I thought, ‘Oh, it sounds like she’s not going to make it to the hospital’.”
Turns out Young’s intuition was bang on.
Within seconds, a man ran up to Young and asked if she could help his pregnant wife while he went to find hospital staff.
“He said, ‘Help, help, can you go help my wife, I have to find help’,” she said.
“By the time I got to her, she was standing in the middle of the parking lot, and she was screaming … ‘the head, the head’. The baby’s head was crowning,” said Young.
“I said, ‘OK, this baby is coming now’, and the mom was obviously in complete shock,” she said.
“I didn’t feel any fear at that moment, I just thought we needed to get this baby out,” said Young, who moved the mom’s clothing out of the way. “I said, ‘It’s coming, it’s coming!’, and the mom told me it’s a girl. I said, ‘OK, babe, she’s coming into this world, so let’s do this’. So, I just kind of turned the baby’s shoulders and she came on out.”
The fear didn’t really hit Young until she had the baby in her arms, and no help was coming. And the baby wasn’t breathing.
“That was my biggest concern. I flipped the baby over and tried to clear her lungs,” she said.
“It was cold and I couldn’t quite get off my sweater and hold onto the baby, and the mom was not speaking, but still standing up, she delivered fully standing,” she said.
York Regional Police arrived at that point, Young said, and the dad and hospital staff soon followed.
She admits it’s likely not much time had passed since the woman first went into distress in the parking lot, but it felt like a long time to her.
“They all came out, and I passed the baby to dad, and they cut the cord and a health-care worker wrapped the baby in a warming blanket and took off with the baby,” she said. “There was no holding this baby in there, she was coming. She was so beautiful.”
Hospital staff offered Young a private washroom to wash up and gave her some orange juice.
“I just wanted to know if the baby and mom were OK, that’s all I really cared about,” she said, adding staff at Southlake Regional Health Centre called her later that evening to say that mom and baby were doing great and, her daughter, who witnessed the episode, was also relieved that baby was OK.
“I’m thinking I just went from COVID, not touching anything, I haven’t been in a store in 60-something days, and now I’m arm-deep in … what the hell just happened,” Young said with a laugh.
Young said there were several people who were sitting in their vehicles in the parking lot watching everything unfold, but no one came out to help.
“That definitely killed a little part of my faith in humanity,” she said. “For me, it wasn’t even a thought, here’s this woman in distress trying to bring life into this world, and some people just sat there so paralyzed with fear they couldn’t help somebody.”
“I just feel what I did is what anybody should do, you know, the right thing,” Young said. “But who knows how people will react in an emergency situation until it happens.”
When Newmarket Mayor John Taylor heard about Young’s courageous efforts, he presented Young with a Good Samaritan award on behalf of the town.
“...for your timely and immediate response assisting with the delivery of a newborn baby in the parking lot at Southlake RHC. Thank you for being a caring champion!” the certificate said.
In a letter to Young, Taylor said “you are truly an amazing and selfless person, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, knowing the social distancing restrictions in place, and realizing what you needed to do to assist this woman”.
“Amanda, it is people like you that make a difference and I will always remember and probably share your story many times in the coming days and years,” said Taylor.
“Thank you for being a truly kind, caring, and wonderful human being — you make the world a little brighter.”
