Baby Otis makes a dramatic entrance in our Aylesbury store's car park
Congratulations to proud parents Laura Street and Nick Jones who are celebrating the birth of baby Otis George after he made an unexpected entrance to the world in the car park of our Aylesbury store!
Laura and Nick were on their way to the neighbouring Stoke Mandeville Hospital after popping into the store for a bite to eat – but didn’t get that far before her waters broke. Colleagues and customers rushed to help, and Otis was safely born weighing a healthy 8lb 3oz.
Laura said: “As we started walking back towards the hospital through Asda’s car park I was in a lot of pain and I realised my waters had broken there and then. I started screaming as it was obviously really painful. My screaming had attracted quite a lot of people, customers and colleagues.
“One colleague came out with towels to wrap the baby in. A customer called Karen Joseph called an ambulance, and another customer called Jenny Simms came over to help. She’d just completed a hypnobirthing course which was very lucky as she kept me very calm.
“I was wearing a dress and Nick actually caught Otis; he was born almost immediately after my waters broke.
“It was all quite stressful, but everyone around us was so nice, kind and helpful. The ambulance arrived and took us to the hospital where we stayed overnight.
“I think it was one of the paramedics who said, 'He has to be called George so he can be George at Asda'. We didn’t have a middle name in mind so we went for George because he arrived in an Asda car park. We'll be explaining the story of Otis’s birth to him every time we visit the store."
Laura and Nick returned to the store with Otis and his two-year-old brother Huxley this week to thank colleagues and customers who helped them out.
Nick said: “The whole experience was pretty incredible. It all happened really quickly so I’m very glad that there were people there to help. I am really looking forward to a promising second career in midwifery!”
Three of the colleagues who helped on the night were ambient section leaders Abhay Ashiani and Nick Meekings and checkouts section leader Victoria Hart.
Our colleague Jo Henderson, who works at the store, said: “Congratulations to Nick and Laura. We’re very proud of our colleagues for their calm response. It’s not the sort of situation you expect to face but they dealt with it brilliantly. All of the colleagues and customers rallied round.
“We are five minutes’ walk from the hospital so we are used to seeing heavily pregnant customers – but we’re not used to them actually giving birth here!”
Laura said: “We're both so grateful for the support from everybody that was there and also so impressed by the generosity and kindness of strangers.
"It was really great to come back in to see everyone and thank them in person. It was also good to hear their version of events as I was obviously quite overwhelmed at the time and couldn’t remember exactly what happened. The colleagues all said they’d never heard of anything like this before and said it all happened so quickly.”
Customer Jenny said: “I arrived just as Nick caught the baby. I was with my sister just two weeks before as her birth partner and we’d done a hypnobirthing class together, so I stayed with Laura and helped reassure her. She was amazing!”