I should, and do, feel sympathy for that poor woman, her neighbours, and you. But even more than that I feel: what powerful writing, how well you show us the impact of the event.

Was she cute?

Idiot.

"was she cute?" words cannot express how crass, insensitive and inhumane that comment was.

Anyone who could make such a statment, hasen't developed a brain.

What was wrong with her?

I'm guessing a miscarriage or similar.

I don't know her, but as a mother of two who has also experienced two miscarriages myself, she has my sympathies and empathy. Miscarriage is a heartbreaking experience.

It's good to hear there were people with her trying to take care of her though.

I hope this one had a good outcome, but I guess once they've been dropped off at A&E it's rare to find out further news?

maybe its a woman thing but this post really made me cringe, never happened before dispite reading this blog for sometime but i felt like I had invaded her privacy and intruded on her distress

OK I guess she haemorrhaged, but a little blood goes a long way.
How bad?
Did you manage to save the baby? Or her?
What on earth triggered it - an accident, or a miscarriage?
Please don't leave the story hanging like that.

a little blood goes a long way... but in a situation like that would scare the hell out of anyone.

Hi,

We would like to invite you to a new Blog Ranking Service. With us you can market your blog to the entire world.

Best of all...it's free.

Blog Rankers

That poor, poor woman.

Even if she and the baby are fine that moment will stay with her forever.

Please can you let us know what happens.

Claire, Midwife

Where was the husband?

I think you mean, "Where was the father".

For those that are concerned - the patient was 38 weeks pregnant, had a low placenta (which had moved to a normal position later in the pregnancy). She had lost around 400mls of blood (about the same amount as when you donate blood), and was otherwise fit and healthy.

The blood looked like a lot because of the laminate floor.

She would have been in the maternity department within 20 minutes of the bleeding starting, I'm guessing that it was possibly a smallish placental abruption, she would then (depending on the amount of abruption) maybe have a C-Section.

That's what I think, any midwives want to weigh in with their ideas? It's incredibly unlikely that I'll find out what happened.

I dont think its fair to push MR R for more infomation, he will I am sure post what he feels is apropriate.

Yes this is potentially another sad event. Lets hope I have a quiet night tonight (yes I know I'm mad and its Friday)

Wow... that had to be a shock to the system. I sure hope everything turned out all right for the woman. Its incredable stories like this that has placed "Random Acts of Reality" on the top of my short list of blogs.

Poor soul.

I was wondering if you'd come across a problem like this one.

Although I feel insensitive for bringing it to your attention right now, I thought it was an interesting article. I can't imagine having the gall to stop an ambulance, whether they were on a shout, were a GP's car, or whatever . . .

How sodding stupid can the transport authorities get!!!

Oh God - my heart sinks at the thought of the distress of the woman. I so hope that she and her baby are fine - and thank goodness for good neighbours caring enough to be there for her. And ambulance personnel who care as much as you do.

The poor, poor woman - she must have been so terrified. I do hope that she was ok in the end, and her baby was ok too. Must be so difficult to get closure on some of your calls... especially in cases like this. I took a ride in an ambulance on Weds because my 8wk old son stopped breathing - and thank god for EMTs, ours arrived in about 5 minutes (10 min ahead of the ambulance) and gave him oxygen before we headed to the hospital.. all the paramedics were so professional, and checked up on us in the A&E dept several times before their next call. You guys do a most wonderful job..

Read your blog for the first time tonight. Great stuff! Hell, I´ll even bookmark it ;). Working the night shift right now, for the ambulance service here in Swedens second city Gothenburg. It´s been quiet so far. No one really sick, but that´s not unusual to sat the least. OK. I´ll be popping in on a regular basis. Hav e anice life!

What a powerful way to describe a scene!

Just when I think my techie job is stressing me out, I read something like this and it reminds me that it's not that traumatic after all.

Did none of the neighbours think to cover her up? Just a towel draped over her shoulders would have been sufficient, and that would have helped her, the patient, to calm down slightly. Surely?! I can appreciate that she would have been panicking, but surely someone throwing a towel around her to keep her warm would have made her feel better than leaving her standing naked in a pool of blood.

And also possibly put a towel or something over the blood, so she couldn't see it. The sight of it, especially as described spread over a laminate floor would have caused her further distress and discomfort...

Ah well, nothing can be done about it now. And I'd hate to witness it myself. Just the prospect of a baby being delivered in the back of our motor is bad enough!

Regards
Nick
http://nickhough.blogspot.com

This whole situation is very frightening to read, but very awakening to reality.
~djc

Here's hoping all is good for both her, her child and the neighbours. Not something that they would have expected to see when helping a neighbour. Nor you either Mr R.

Chances are she was in labour. When I went into labour and lost my mucus plug a lot of blood came out that had just been sitting in the bottom of my uterus not hurting anything. It should also be noted that it could be normal for a woman to lose around 500ml of blood during delivery (pregnant women can have as much as 40% more blood volume than a normal woman). Chances are baby and mom are doing just fine.

*Note from the hubby: he's going to give a slightly modified version of this scenario to his EMT students to see how they do. A big thank you to Mr. Reynolds for the inspiration.

Can I just point out:

Random haemorrhaging of 400mls of fresh blood DURING labour is NOT normal nor should ever be considered so. It sounds like she was having a placental abruption; expediate delivery of the baby would have been necessary and the chances are if a fetal heartbeat was found and she was got to hospital in time that things woudl have been ok.

Claire
Midwife

You may notice I used the word "delivery" and not the word "labour".

Yes, but the rest of your post implied that the woman was in labour and that this blood loss was something not to be that worried about. And bearing in mind that many non-medical people read blogs like this, I am always a bit wary of any potentially ambiguous posts that could make people think something like that is normal when it isn't.

In the same way, it's not a usual occurrence for blood to be 'sitting in your uterus'- I wouldn't like to speculate on why that was but it isn't something I would just dismiss as 'normal'.

Oh gosh, that poor woman. I do find it heartening that her neighbours stuck around to help out though.

As to the intruding on a private moment: there are no details to say where or who it was, so I think it's ok. It's not been put up just for crude kicks or anything, and nobody (except for the one idiot) has read it as such either.