explainer

Meet Caleb the "Miracle Baby" whose mother was killed in a horror Hobart car crash.

 

It’s been a little over a month since Daniel Stirling lost his partner Sarah Paino in a horror car crash in Hobart.

He was finishing off the early shift at local bakery Banjo’s when police came to break the news a stolen vehicle with four teenagers on board had slammed into Sarah’s car.

“My body just went numb and it just clicked in my head…and I just said, ‘she was pregnant’,” Daniel told Melissa Doyle in an exclusive interview on Channel 7’s Sunday Night program last night.

Just hours earlier 24-year-old Sarah, who was seven months pregnant at the time, had dropped him off before driving into the night with the couple’s toddler in the back seat.

Ordinarily, Daniel would have gotten a lift from a friend but that morning it had fallen through.

He said she was her “happy self”.

“She should have been in bed, yeah, she should have been in bed,” he said.

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Sarah Paino’s car following the accident. Source: Sunday Night
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Fortunately 2-year-old Jordan was unharmed in the crash and, remarkably, an ambulance was only 500m away.

Intensive Care Paramedic Keith Macqueen was one of the first on the scene and he also spoke to Channel 7 last night.

“We found out early on that she was pregnant,” he said.

“I honestly didn’t think Sarah was going to survive and I honestly didn’t think the baby was going to survive at this time.

“We had about five minutes to get her to hospital for the delivery of a reasonably healthy baby.”

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Baby Caleb was released from hospital today. Source: Sunday Night
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Luckily, they managed to get Sarah to Hobart Hospital where she was attended to by a team of expert doctors, who managed to deliver the baby she was carrying by emergency c-section.

Dr Kate Field, the emergency specialist who attended to her, also appeared on the program.

“The fact that the accident happened so close to the hospital, the fact that I was still available to make those really critical decisions… and the fact that we had an obstetrician in the hospital that was available,” she said.

“It meant that we could actually give Caleb the opportunity of life.”

“This baby is just completely and utterly a miracle baby.”

Daniel says baby Caleb is “just an image of Sarah” and describes his survival as “bittersweet”

“I loved her, still do,” he says.

“I don’t think I’m going to find anyone that will come close to her. I don’t think I really want to.

“It crushes me, I’m never going get to hear her voice again her smile nothing.”

The public were able to share their messages of support for the family on Twitter under the hashtag #miraclebaby.

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