IMPATIENT baby Ioan Jack Thomas caused chaos when he decided to make a hasty arrival into the world in the back of his parents' car.

The shocked couple, Helen and John, were forced to make a high-speed dash across town but the bouncing 9Ib 8oz baby boy arrived shortly after they pulled up outside Queen's Park Hospital, Blackburn.

John, 42, an architectural technician, delivered his son in the back seat and untangled the umbilical cord before the midwife arrived.

But the excitement didn't end there for the proud pair of Revidge Road, Blackburn, who have four other sons.

During their rush to the maternity unit they had driven over a traffic cone which punctured the petrol tank of their Ford Sierra.

A passing fire crew noticed the leak and stopped to seal the tank for safety.

"It was certainly a day we will never forget. All my previous labours have been long and so I didn't think I had anything to worry about. John was working in Huddersfield and by the time he got home I knew it was an emergency," explained Helen, 38, who works as a primary school teacher in Goosnargh. "John was waving his hands and shouting "my wife's about to give birth" to other motorists on the way to the hospital. He did a marvellous job with the delivery and was being congratulated more than me in the ward. My brother is a GP and he was also very impressed with how John coped."

Ioan - pronounced Johann - who was named after his Welsh father, is now settling in at home with his brothers Richard, 14, James, 11, and Joe, nine, and Tom, six, blissfully unaware of the panic he created.

Helen said: "I was still working at school until Friday and it's hard to believe I ended up giving birth among empty crisp packets and other rubbish in the back of our car.

"We are just grateful there was a happy ending to it all. Ioan is a lovely baby and we've got quite an impressive story to tell him when he gets a bit older."

John added: "Ioan was three days early so the whole thing came as a surprise. I didn't have much time to think about what was happening, I did it all on instinct. Luckily Helen wasn't a first time mother and knew what to do."

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