Louis Brochard thought he was running a pizzeria, not a maternity hospital! Yet it is there that on August 16, his assistant manager had to become a midwife for Mariam, a baby in a great hurry.
Noon, August 16, is the start of kitchen service at the restaurant Basil & Co, in Rennes. At this moment, a very pregnant lady walks in quickly and immediately goes to the toilets. Eliott, assistant manager, may not have a degree in gynecology and is only 24 years old, but he worries. “I immediately launched to my colleague, as I walked away from the counter: ‘If you don’t see her come out, we call the emergency services!'” The client comes out, but doubled over, making signs to them that are both precise and a bit panicked.
And for good reason, Ema, the future mother is deaf-mute ! And moreover from Georgia. Otherwise it would be too simple… The waitress runs up with a glass of water and makes her sit down, saying a few words to her that remain unanswered. Ema immediately pulls out her cell phone for a simultaneous video translation with a bilingual friend who acts as the interface between sign language in Georgian and oral language in French! “Frankly, we were in full stress, admits Eliott, and I rushed to the phone to call the fire department!”
“To cut the cord, apart from the pizza scissors, we didn’t have!” Laughs the boss
Louis, the owner of the pizzeria, whose restaurant cameras filmed the rest, still can’t believe it: “The, like in a movie, a doctor arrived for lunch with his wife. He immediately approached Ema and found himself, at a moment’s notice, giving orders like in the operating room: ‘Heat up some clean rags!’, which we did alongside the pizza oven. Or ‘Give your jackets to lengthen it!’ and the staff spread out coats to make a makeshift bed.”
Once Ema lies down, the baby is born in five minutes. The team brings warm cloths to wrap the baby. All are sweaty, hypnotized patrons in action. “Do you have anything to cut the cord?”launches the doctor who, for the record, is coming back from a funeral. “Apart from the pizza scissors, we didn’t have!”, laughs Louis. It is finally the firefighters, who arrived in ten minutes, who will perform this gesture requiring sterile equipment.
They quickly take a liking to this family of refugees who do not roll on gold
“The baby was wrapped warm and taken to an incubator, the mother on a stretcher, continues Eliott, and life resumed a normal course. No customer complained about the delay in the kitchen and we invited the doctor to lunch !” The story, already incredible, could have ended there, but that was counting without the great humanity of the team, which manifested itself on the day itself. “I called the maternity ward as soon as I got home”, smiled Elliott. Louis, the boss, sends a text message to the family: “Now that you have come to give birth in my restaurant, I am waiting for you to eat there with your family!”
And, with his wife, they quickly take a liking to this family of refugees who do not roll on gold. “From birth, explains Louis, we saw coincidences everywhere. Ema and her husband, Besarion, called their daughter Mariam, and my wife is called Myriam. They have a 3-year-old son whose name is Louis, like me! We are young parents like them, with a 6-year-old son and an 18-month-old daughter.” Like benevolent godfather and godmother, Myriam offered to give their little one’s clothes to the newborn, and Louis offered her the free restaurant for life. “As soon as she eats solid food, she’ll be welcome. I’m happy to tell myself that every time she walks past the restaurant, she’ll say to herself: ‘I was born there.’ fund !”
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