Julia's Story

Julia (24) started haemorrhaging around midnight at her home in Orkney while just 35 weeks pregnant - her hopes and dreams of delivering a much longed-for baby slowly seeping away.

As blood spilled across the bathroom and hallway floors, she called her husband Scott for help and within minutes she was raced in the family car to hospital at Kirkwall, 13 miles away.

“I had lost 1.5 litres of blood by then,” explained Julia. “I will never forget the midwife’s face when she couldn’t detect the baby’s pulse.

“I was told I would have to have an emergency caesarean and it was a good family friend who was the theatre nurse on duty. I remember taking his hand and saying - I know I am going to die but please save my baby.

“He just stroked my face.”

Baby David was born at 1.48am weighing 6lbs 5oz.

“I didn’t get to hold him,” said Julia. “I got to see him in his incubator two hours later and have a photo of his tiny hand clutching my finger.”

At 6am, David was flown by the Scottish Ambulance Service light aircraft to advanced care at Aberdeen Sick Children’s Hospital, leaving Julia and Scott bereft.

“As I had a section, I wasn’t allowed to fly with him. The last I saw him was in the incubator being wheeled out of the hospital to the waiting aircraft.

“They left me without my baby. I was lying in the maternity unit hearing babies crying and I couldn’t get to mine.”

At 8am the maternity unit received a call to say that David had arrived at Aberdeen but there was no update on his health.

“I was frantic with worry. I was angry that no one could tell me anything. I felt so alone and so scared,” said Julia. “Then, that afternoon, Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance was called in.”

Despite being terrified of flying, Julia’s determination to reach her baby drove her to accept SCAA’s helicopter was the fastest way to see him again.

“Scott had taken a Loganair flight to Aberdeen that morning, but I was in the helicopter before he could get word to me on how David was. I still didn’t know if he was out of danger or not.

“Being with SCAA’s crew on the helicopter was the safest I had felt since the start of my ordeal.

“I suffer from PTSD now but the memory I hold on to is the comfort and safety I felt aboard SCAA and the crew’s kindness and expertise.”

In a little over an hour, Julia was reunited with her husband and son at ARI but Julia knows that if she hadn’t had the support and understanding of SCAA’s paramedics, she could never have made such a flight.

“They calmed me down. They said: We’re here, we’ll look after you, we’ll help you through this.

“They are the most wonderful people – the people you want on your side when your whole world is collapsing and you’re full of terror and dread. They are the best people I’ve ever met – there when I needed them most.

“My son could have died before I even got to hold him, to touch him, to know him.

I thought I would lose him before I had even met him.”

David is now absolutely fine – a brilliant mischievous little 3-year-old. Into everything and full of life.

“Living on an island it could have gone so terribly wrong for me, for David – or both of us,” said Julia.

“My husband is my hero – without his fast actions we could both have died. And David is my world. He’s the reason I get up every morning. I was told I could never have children so he’s my miracle boy.

“SCAA’s role may have been minimal, but it was the world to me. Without them I wouldn’t have got to my baby.

“I will be forever grateful – they put my family back together again.”