Carnival baby born in car
It’s been an emotional night in Halle (Flemish Brabant) where a pregnant woman was obliged to give birth to her baby in a car as she couldn’t get to hospital in time due to the crowds celebrating carnival. Elsewhere a woman was seriously injured when she fell several metres ending up on a railway line.
Some 13,000 people from carnival groups joined the revelry. In total some 100,000 people were expected to take part in the carnival celebrations in the Flemish Brabantian town. Revellers wore a black ribbon out of respect for the six people killed when a car drove into a carnival group in Strépy (La Louvière) in Wallonia last week.
In the early evening emergency services were alerted to a highly pregnant woman, who could not reach hospital in time due to the crowds.
Members of an emergency medical team rushed to the scene and assisted by the father the baby was born. Mother and child are doing well.
Later in the night a woman was seriously injured after falling several metres and landing on the railway line. Emergency services attended the scene and took the woman, who was seriously hurt, to hospital in Brussels. She has meanwhile regained consciousness.
Rail traffic was halted for a while.