A woman in pain collapsed on the subway and staff knew she wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time. The London Underground train network, affectionately known as the Tomb, snakes deep beneath the capital of the United Kingdom, carrying up to 5 million riders each day. Every one of those subterranean passengers has their own story, and sometimes a vital chapter of these personal biographies is written on the tube itself.
On May 28, 2009, the then 32-year-old businesswoman, Michelle Jenkins, from Barking in East London, hopped on a tube train on the Underground’s Jubilee Line at lunchtime, the newest line in the network. Jubilee trains travel from Stratford in the east of the city, right through central London before finishing at Stanmore in the capital’s northwest suburbs. Now, back to the story because it services so much of the city, it’s not uncommon to board a Jubilee Line train and feel distinctly uncomfortable.
It can be sticky on a hot summer’s day
It can even feel warmer underground, and it can be overcrowded during rush hour. Commuters squeeze in to make sure to reach the office on time or home as soon as they can. However, Jenkins felt an entirely different level of discomfort on that day. In Spring 2009, as her tube train made its underground path from station to station, the young woman suddenly realized she had to get off and get help fast. Despite the unexpected and sharp pain, she felt in her guts, Jenkins was able to disembark from the train in the station at London Bridge, one of the top ten busiest terminals in the capital.
As of 2016, Jenkins made it as far as the station’s ticket barrier
Where she collapsed with the agonizing pain and begged for help from those working on the platform. Seeing how dire her situation was, London Underground employees took this stricken woman to their staff room. The worried tube workers then made with the London Evening Standard newspaper described as an urgent appeal over the station’s loudspeaker system, asking if any of the travelers present at London Bridge was a doctor who could help the distressed woman. In the meantime, the station employees also called an ambulance.
Tube staff also attended to her and made sure she was comfortable, according to a spokeswoman for London Underground.
Very shortly afterward, three doctors raced to lend assistance. They were believed to be from a nearby hospital guy in St. Thomas’s, but despite their rapid response, they wouldn’t make it to the staff room in time to figure out what was wrong with Jenkins. Fortunately, London’s rich customer services assistant Dorothy Ogenik was already on hand. She knew exactly how to help the woman in so much agony that’s because Jenkins’s pain had come as a shock but was not totally unexpected.
Jenkins was heavily pregnant, and Owen Dyke knew how to care for a woman in labor
She’d already assisted her sisters and cousins when they had given birth. Jenkins was the next on the list to deliver a baby. With Ogrennight’s help, her son arrived just after 02:00 p.m. The first baby boy ever born on the London Underground, the new arrival came into the world just twelve minutes after station staff called for an ambulance.
Emergency services eventually arrived and took the healthy mother and son to the Royal London Hospital in nearby Whitechapel. Jenkins later declined any further press publicity after the initial reports and declined to inform Londoners about the name she had chosen for her baby. Although Jenkins’s son was the first boy ever born on the tube, he wasn’t the first baby delivered on the network. Marie Cordray, born in 1924, has the distinction of being the first recorded birth on the London Underground. She first said Hello to the world at the Elephant and Castle station in the south of the city.
It would be a wait of more than 80 years
before another new arrival came along the Tube on December 19, 2008. Like Jenkins, Julia Kawaska was riding the Jubilee Line when she felt her waters break a telltale sign at the start of labor. Fortunately, Koalzka was riding with her sister, who helped her off the train at Kingsbury Station in the northwest of the capital. Koala went into labor on the station’s platform and also, like Jenkins, was moved to a staff room to make her more comfortable before an ambulance arrived again.
Like Jenkins, Koalaska’s baby couldn’t wait.
Attending paramedics decided to deliver the healthy baby girl right there at the station because they felt there was not enough time to get the mom to be safe to the hospital. Since Jenkins’s happy arrival, a second baby boy has been born at London Bridge station. Press reported that an unnamed woman went into labor on an overground Southeastern commuter train on Thursday, April 27, 2017. The mum to be realized that her son was coming while riding the train just before the evening rush hour. She was helped onto the platform at London Bridge, where station staff responded to her urgent need for medical attention right away again, the public address cry went up and an off duty doctor was able to safely deliver the baby before paramedics could arrive at the scene, Dean Parsons, an information assistant for Southeastern Railway, told the London Evening Standard.
It’s always amazing how quickly doctors and nurses will always respond to announcements
They’re fabulous. A man procured a blanket from a nearby shop to make sure the new mom and son were as comfortable as possible with London Bridge station employees relieved that the delivery had gone well with yet another healthy baby born that day on the Capital’s rail network, the staff proved they have just what it takes to help just about any passenger and distress, even those whose lives are about to change forever.