Jill helps dad deliver his girl
EMERGENCY medical dispatcher Jill Rickert could only yell for joy when she heard the first screams of a newborn on the other end of the phone line at 4.55am yesterday.
Baby Kaycee Michelle Tribe couldn't wait to enter the world, forcing her parents Megan and Michael first to call a nearby neighbour to look after her older sisters, Shari and Tanika, and then pull over on the Bruce Highway, two kilometres from their home in Bajool.
Michael had called triple zero for help and Jill guided him through what to do.
At the Rockhampton Hospital yesterday afternoon, Jill couldn't stop commenting on how calm Michael sounded on the phone.
"I had no idea what I was doing," Michael said.
"What comforted me was that you (Jill) knew where we were (near the go cart tracks)."
Michael said he was relieved when the QAS paramedics turned up.
Jill said: "I think reality only hit him when he was holding his baby."
This was the second time Jill had helped someone deliver a baby over the phone - the first was a woman near Sarina delivering her own grandchild.
