Dad's express delivery
ANTE-NATAL classes couldn't quite prepare Bryant Platt for the one-handed, roadside delivery of his little bundle of joy, after his wife gave birth in the front seat of their car en route to the hospital.
Mr Platt and his heavily pregnant wife, Megan, had been to Bundaberg Hospital for a check-up on Wednesday afternoon, but they had no idea they'd be rushing back there later that night.
"They checked the baby's heart rate and said I'd be fine to wait until the morning," Mrs Platt said.
The family returned to their Gin Gin home but, by 9pm, Mrs Platt's contractions were coming three and five minutes apart.
"We thought we had plenty of time to get to the hospital," she said.
But the second-time mum's contractions became more and more frequent and the family made a mad dash to the hospital.
"I wanted to push and Bryant said, 'no you don't, we're 10 minutes away'," she said.
"I had another contraction and I said, 'the baby's coming'."
So it was there by the side of the road in Sharon, underneath a lone streetlamp, that Mr Platt became a makeshift midwife.
"He was on the phone with the ambulance dispatch," Mrs Platt said.
She said the 000 operator repeatedly asked her husband if he could see the baby's head and, just as Mr Platt looked down, he caught the first glimpse of the couple's new child.
"The operator said, 'you're going to have to catch the baby, and the baby is going to be slippery," Mrs Platt said.
"He had the mobile in one hand and he caught the baby in the other."
Three minutes later, the ambulance arrived to find an exhausted dad, a relieved mum and their newborn son, Liam.
"I think I surprised everyone," Mrs Platt said.
"When the ambulance arrived, I walked from the car to the stretcher."
Mr Platt praised the ambulance operator, who talked him through every step of the "scary" delivery.
"She was right - he was very slippery when he came out," he said.
Liam is a brother to five-year-old Amelia.
