Makeshift plastic bag incubator saves premature baby

London, Aug 8, 2010: A paramedic in Britain saved the life of a baby girl born 14 weeks ahead of schedule by building a makeshift incubator out of a plastic bag.

Sophie Thomlinson weighed just about 600 grams when she was born in the back of an ambulance as her mother Emily, 29, was being driven to hospital during a blizzard earlier this year.

The premature baby was in need of an incubator but the equipment is too large to be installed in most ambulances, reports the Telegraph.

But paramedic Rob Dalziel, 37, was able to keep her moist by wrapping her in a yellow plastic bag usually used for disposing of hazardous medical supplies.

He then used towels to cocoon the child and keep her body temperature at a safe level and forced air into her lungs to ensure she kept breathing as the ambulance continued on to Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading.

She spent two weeks in the hospital's intensive treatment unit's 'Hot Room' before being transferred to the High Dependency Unit at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

Four months later Sophie has been allowed home with her mother and father Peter Hazzard, 27, in Wheatley, Oxon.

Emily said: "I was in a lot of pain and quite stressed not knowing what was going to happen. Giving birth 14 weeks premature is not ideal, especially on the side of the road.

"I was really worried and I did not know if Sophie would still be alive when we reached the hospital."