Halifax TV reporter recounts helping woman in labour during snowstorm

Brett Ruskin was just out to report on another snowstorm in the relentless series of snowstorms that have battered Halifax this year.

Snow was coming down and high winds created blizzard-like conditions. Some roads were nearly impassable. Most business were closed.

Ruskin, a video journalist for Global News, was filming police and paramedics helping a woman in labour to an ambulance.

“They were having a tough time getting over these giant snowbanks that we have all over the city,” Ruskin told Yahoo Canada News.

“I was just about to leave but then I decided to get a witness statement. After I was done that interview that’s when I heard the woman calling out in the snowbank,” he said.

Ruskin, a former lifeguard, rushed to help a second woman in the throes of labour, struggling to get through the snow.

“This was in the middle of the storm. Wind was howling and blowing the light snow in all directions, so there were snow drifts building up. As soon as plows took care of one area, it just got filled in right behind them,” he said.

Police had to go door to door to borrow shovels to help the first woman in labour. The second woman was having a tough time, too.

“She was quite a ways into labour, one week overdue with her child and I helped her the best that I could to pack down a path and help her through the deep snow to a more shallow, safer area.”

It took them a couple of minutes to get through the snow, then Ruskin called 911. The ambulance arrived about 15 minutes later while they waited inside a neighbour’s home.

The woman, Lisa, gave birth Wednesday night to a seven-pound, two-ounce baby boy she named Liam. He’s heard through a family member on Facebook that mom and baby and healthy and happy.

Ruskin credits Lisa for her calm under pressure.

“The real hero in all of this was the woman,” he said. “She had a job to do and that was delivering this baby safely. She was calm and collected and a much stronger individual than any of us that was helping her.”

Ruskin’s tweets about his emergency adventure have been shared hundreds of times.

“It’s probably the biggest splash that I’ve made on social media yet,” he said, adding that he thinks the tale has been a welcome diversion.

“I think people are just sick of this awful winter… and they’re just seeking out a great human interest story. People are sick of talking about snow plows, and shoveling, and the cold and this is a positive story to distract them in the dead of winter.”

Halifax remains buried in more than 50 centimetres of snow that fell Wednesday. The city said it will take several days to clean-up.