A life restored

Near dawn, after a long and hard struggle, the baby is born, but it is lifeless. At the same moment, Susan collapses: she is pale and has almost no pulse.

Andrew has to choose in an instant. Acting on instinct, he hands the baby to the nurse and turns to save the mother. With an injection and hard work, he brings her back.

Then he looks for the baby. The midwife has put it under the bed, giving it up for dead. It is perfectly formed, but very pale: its skin is white because of a lack of oxygen. Andrew remembers a similar case he had once seen in hospital, and the treatment used.

For half an hour he works on the baby, rubbing it and plunging it in turn into hot and cold water, while the midwife insists it is stillborn. At last, the little chest heaves, the skin turns pink, and the baby cries. (This hot-and-cold-water method is nearly a century old. It is never used on babies today; modern doctors have safe ways to help a newborn breathe.)

Walking home at dawn, past miners going to work, Andrew feels, for the first time, that he has done something real. His persistence, going on long after others had lost hope, has saved two lives.