AYCLIFFE TODAY MONTHLY | 15
@AYCLIFFETODAY
PIC: Andrea Harrison (right) with Iron Horse landlady Mary Appleby,
in the pub car park which will host their family fun day on 19th July
May 10, 2004, is a date which will
stay with Newtonian Andrea Harrison
forever.
Andrea was 41 weeks pregnant
when she went into early on-set labour
and a midwife visited her at home.
She was told to go to Bishop
Auckland hospital “to get checked
out”. On arrival, she was put on a fetal
monitor and was monitored for 90
minutes.
“I was monitored for longer than I
should have been; I should have only
been monitored for 45 minutes, but
they couldn’t make their mind up
whether there was something going
on,” Andrea recalls.
After being monitored it was decided
by the one member of staff on duty
that the baby’s fetal heart rate wasn’t
normal and that Andrea should be
induced.
“At no time was I ever given any
cause for concern, I was simply told
‘baby wasn’t happy in there, we’re
going to take her out,” Andrea explains.
Andrea was then told to go to
Darlington hospital with her husband
at the time and was given her notes to
take to the labour ward.
She recalls: “We hit traffic, and a
diversion, so a journey that would
normally take about half an hour took
us nearly an hour, and half way there
I started to experience excruciating
pains – I actually thought I was about
to give birth in the car.”
When Andrea finally arrived at
Darlington hospital, the nurses weren’t
aware that she was coming. Andrea
was put into a labour room where
doctors took over and started to prep
for an emergency Caesarean section.
“I then became more aware
that something wasn’t right,” she
remembers.
Andrea was taken into the delivery
room. “At this point I was just really,
really scared,” she said.
“The point I knew something was
wrong, was when I heard a doctor
say: ‘the placenta is being delivered’,
because I knew that this wouldn’t
happen unless the baby had been born
- I hadn’t heard my baby cry yet.”
Baby Olivia had been born without a
heartbeat, nurses carried out CPR on
the resuscitation table for 17 minutes.
“At that point everything just became
really frightening,” saus Andrea. “There
was no life in her, no breathing, it was
the longest 17 minutes of my life.”
Unfortunately there was nothing
that the nurses could do, Olivia was
stillborn and there was no way of
bringing her back.
“I still think to this day that these
things shouldn’t happen, and why did
it happen to me?” she asks.
“I didn’t just feel true anguish and
pain, I saw it in my family and through
my husband and children – it was just
horrendous, it’s torn my family apart.”
Andrea fought a legal case for five
years in the memory of her daughter;
the case ruled that the death of Olivia
was down to pure negligence on
behalf of the medical team involved.
Despite the anguish and pain caused
by this horrific tragedy, Andrea has
been inspired to raise money for the
charity SANDS (stillbirth and neonatal
death).
And with this year marking the tenth
anniversary of Olivia’s death, she has
planned a fundraising day at The Iron
Andrea has planned
a fundraising day at
The Iron Horse on
Saturday 19th July,
where she hopes to
raise lots of money
for SANDS.
Horse on Saturday 19th July, where
she hopes to raise lots of money for
SANDS.
The day will consist of live music,
face-painting, bouncy castles and
general family fun activities.
‘Celestine’ is the headlining act for
the night, a young band consisting
of Elliot Fenwick, Joe Teasdale, Jack
walker and Niall Fen ݥ