A mum was ‘clinically dead’ for 14 MINUTES before waking up to discover she had given birth to a bouncing baby girl.
Natasha Sokunbi was 37 weeks pregnant when she called 111 after she suffered chest pains and was struggling to breathe.
The 30-year-old was advised to go to A&E where she collapsed of a cardiac arrest in the waiting room at Royal Stoke University Hospital.
As medics desperately tried to bring her back to life, doctors also battled to save her unborn baby.
Just four minutes after being rushed into surgery, doctors delivered 6lbs 7oz baby girl Beau via emergency caesarean section.
Medics spent more than 30 minutes resuscitating Natasha before she was stable enough to be put into an induced coma.
She woke up the next day in the critical care unit and was told she had had given birth to a girl.
Natasha, from Stafford, said: “My heart wasn’t beating when the doctors delivered Beau. I was basically dead when they pulled her out.
“One team of medics were delivering her via C-section while another team performed CPR on me.
“The next thing I remember was when I woke up in intensive care and my husband walked over to me with a photo of Beau and said ‘it’s a girl’.
“We hadn’t found out the sex so it was a complete surprise.
“I couldn’t see Beau straight away because I was still very weak and she was in the neonatal unit but I finally saw her a few days later.
“I was really poorly but the doctors and medical teams were amazing.
“They told me I’d been clinically dead for 14 minutes. They saved my baby and they saved me.”
Natasha and husband Ayo, 29, had been looking forward to the birth of their second child when she collapsed on December 3.
Support worker Natasha, who is originally from South Wales, said: “I wasn’t feeling well for a couple of weeks because of chest infection.
“On that morning I called 111 who advised me to make my way to the Royal Stoke.
“I got a taxi to the hospital and went into triage and told them I was really having problems breathing and they told me to wait.
“As I walked back into the waiting room I collapsed and fell forward onto my baby bump.
“I remember bits, like the doctors performing CPR and putting a defibrillator on me.
“When I was having the C-section I remember being in pain but then everything going black.”
After Beau was delivered, doctors called Natasha’s husband Ayo, also a support worker, who rushed to her bedside.
Natasha said: “Ayo had no idea I was in hospital because he was asleep with our other baby daughter when I took a taxi to A&E.
“When he received a call from the hospital he thought they were telling him that I’d had the baby but the said he should get here straight away.
“He was so good. When I was in the coma I can remember hearing him talking to me saying ‘Come on Tash’ ‘Please wake up.’”
Natasha spent three weeks in hospital and had an ICD heart-starter device fitted to prevent her suffering another cardiac arrest in the future.
The mum-of-two is now back home and looking after Beau and her 15-month-old daughter Love.
She said: “I have had heart problems and I think the pregnancy put extra strain on me.
“I still have flash backs and worry that it’ll happen again but I’m just so grateful to the doctors for saving me and Beau.
“To start with I couldn’t hold her very well, but I always tried to do skin to skin with her.
“Being a mum of two is great and I’m regaining my strength and independence.
“Beau is a miracle, and you can never fully put what they’ve done for us it into words.
“The staff were all fantastic. Now I’m much more appreciative of life and won’t take anything for granted ever again.”
In recognition of their actions staff involved in the care of Natasha and Beau have been presented with the Chief Executive Award.
Dr Andrew Bennett, who was one of the first doctors to treat Natasha, said: “The issue when you have a mother who goes into cardiac arrest is that you not only have the team required to resuscitate mum, you very quickly of course when the baby is out, also have a team ready to resuscitate the baby if that’s required.
“So the number of clinical teams involved is huge. This has got to be one of the proudest moments that this department really has ever seen and that collaborative effect from all involved was incredible.”
Senior sister, Alison Hopwell, added: “It’s a rare event but it happened and it happened on a very very busy December morning.
“The department was very busy; however, the whole team, too many to mention, from all specialties pulled together on that morning.”
Dr Simon Constable, chief executive, said: “Natasha’s case is about as serious as it gets and involves not just one person but multiple teams looking after and getting the outcome for her and Beau.
“So it’s a great testament to the real skill and team work that made the outcome what it is because it could have been so very different and I think we recognise that would have been a tragedy.”
