Mercy dash with premature baby

Press, 11 January 1986, Page 1

Mercy dash with premature baby

PA Whangarei

Mrs Tari Rameka, of tiny Te Kao in Northland, had never done mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before she used it to save her nephew Tangaroa — a premature baby — in a car speeding to Kaitaia Hospital. “You' get to learn to do these things fast. I had read a lot about it, but had never come down to doing it,” she said yesterday. “I was panicking, but I didn’t want to give up on him.”

Tangaroa Harawira, born 2kg (41b 7oz), is now doing well in Waikato Hospital’s neo-natal unit, where he was flown on Sunday evening because Auckland inten-sive-care units had no room.

A Waikato paediatrician, Dr David Vourchier, said the baby would remain on a ventilator for a few more, days, but was starting to breath by himself. He is expected to go home to Te Kao with his parents, Mr Taiawa Harawira and Miss Ngaromoana Raureti, in three or

four weeks.

Miss Raureti was planning to have a home birth for her third child on March 15 and with expert help, not suddenly on Sunday morning with only her husband at hand.

The birth took only five minutes and Mr Harawira used a razor blade and. curtain cord to sever the umbilical cord. Then began Mr Harawira’s harrowing Bkm journey to the nearest relatives round the tidal mudflats of Parengarenga Harbour.

From Mrs Rameka’s home he drove a four-wheel drive vehicle across forestry tracks to within 2km of the house.

His wife and the baby were brought on horseback by Mrs Rameka’s husband to meet the vehicle.

In Hamilton yesterday, Mr Harawira said the saga began about 9 a.m. on Sunday when the mother told him she was going to give birth. He said she held on to their daughter’s cot while he delivered the baby.

“I kept telling my wife the baby was normal,” he said.

Mr Harawira got a lift to his sister’s place and tried to convince her as she cooked breakfast that his story was true.

Mrs Rameka went to look after the pair while he tried - to arrange for a plane to fly them to National Women’s Hospital in Auckland. But Kaitaia Hospital told him the nearest plane was six hours away in Auckland and instead sent an ambulance to meet them.

On the way to meet the ambulance baby Tangaroa stopped breathing a number of times but Mrs Rameka breathed air into him. Mr Harawira said they were all greatly relieved when they met the ambulance and were amazed at the work done by doctors in the ambulance to keep the baby alive.

When they reached Kaitaia airport, mother and child were flown to Waikato Hospital where Tangaroa is improving.