Thursday, February 11, 2010

Definitely not the Stork

A major snow storm, no school and a bit of free time to to sit and shmooz on the phone with friends. A friend who still lives in the area was reminiscing with me about the old Far Rockaway, the one that existed before I got married. In going through some of our favorite shared memories she reminded me of one story that had us rolling back then and that still gives us a chuckle now.

NYC was hit by a major snow storm (sound familiar?). Somehow the area from Beach 9th to Reads Lane never got plowed until at least a day after any storm, and this time was no different. Everyone was outside trying to dig out their cars. Suddenly a man was seen running up to one of the garbage truck/plows that was on Beach 9th, waving his hands frantically. In a second the truck had turned around and was following the man down the street, plowing as it went.

The story? A woman went into labor and could not drive to the hospital because of the snow, so she and her husband started walking towards a main street. She managed to get as far as the house of the Rav of the White Shule and could go no further. She delivered in the Rav's house. But she and the baby needed to get to the hospital. The garbage truck managed to get down the Rav's street and the driver bundled up the new mother and baby and put them into the cab of the garbage truck and took them to the hospital. Okay, an unusual enough development in the giving birth story. But the best was yet to be.

Apparently babies who were not born within the sterile confines of a hospital delivery room were isolated from those born in the hospital. The records had to indicate the circumstances of their birth. The local newspaper printed an entry from the new baby's hospital record (twas the days before HIPAA). The hospital record clearly stated: "Delivered by garbage truck." Gee, most people had to settle for being delivered by an obstetrician.

It's items like this that remind me that it's not just my students who occasionally twist the English language into strange shapes and amazing statements.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I once saw an Oprah broadcast in which mothers described their unusual birth stories, mostly involving deliveries outside hospitals. I remember one mother describing her quick delivery in the car on the way to the hospital. Everything was perfect, then when they got their hospital bill, they found it was double the usual, due to extra charges for "disinfecting" their baby and so on. You can guess that this was one of the easiest births imaginable, and they might have been better off just turning the car around and going home with their healthy newborn.

Esther said...

My mil has the easiest deliveries of anyone I know. One pain and she has the baby. None of her kids was born in the hospital because of this. My husband was born in the doctors office when she went for her weekly checkup. Doctor was a real mentch--when the bill came he had marked down office visit and only charged her $10.

Lion of Zion said...

best deivery video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62epKYypO40

my wife gave birth recently in staten island. one thing we were worried about is getting stuck in rush hour traffic (or going into labor on the day of the marathon, when the bridge is closed). then again, compared to the first time, a speedy delivery in the back seat would have been a pleasure.