Baby born on London bus

October 27, 2009 by Shawn Douglas
Filed under: News

Photo: EVENING STANDARD

A baby boy was born on a London bus last Thursday en route to the hospital.

Emiloju Fatima Lawal, pregnant with her fourth child, thought she was going on a routine visit to the doctor. However, that plan changed when she went into labor while on the bus.

Originally, her husband Abiodun had offered her a ride, but Ms. Lawal turned it down and walked to the bus stop to catch the bus. When she got on the 394 to Homerton Hospital in Hackney, she began to feel strange.

“When I got on the bus I couldn’t feel anything in my right leg,” she said. “A man asked if I was okay. I said, ‘No, I’m in labor,’ and then the baby began to push.”

Passengers alerted the driver, Pauline Jacobs, and asked her to speed up.

“A young man came up to me and said, ‘There’s a lady having a baby,’ and he asked could I put my foot down so she didn’t have it on the bus. I told him we have a set schedule but I tried my best,” said Ms. Jacobs.

As Ms. Lawal’s labor progressed, Jacobs radioed to her controllers that she needed an ambulance. Jacobs then pulled the bus over near Mare Street as the birth was imminent.

“They said I should lie down but I couldn’t so I knelt and started pushing,” said Ms. Lawal. “Then a few minutes later he came out and I said ‘Excuse me, the baby is here.’”

With the aid of passenger Carole Allen, a switchboard operator at Homerton Hospital, Ms. Lawal gave birth to a 7-pound, 7-ounce boy, Olatidebe Dennis Agboola. The boy was given the middle name “Dennis” from the name of the bus’s manufacturer, Dennis Specialist Vehicles.

Despite the circumstances, Ms. Lawal said that the birth of her baby on the bus was the smoothest birth of her four children.