‘Breech’ baby Reuben turns one

This meant the boy’s feet were facing downwards, which is a relatively rare occurrence and places both baby and mum at a slightly higher risk.

Claire Charlton was facing an hour transfer to hospital by road, so the critical care team from the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) flew to her aid.

GNAAS paramedic Tim West said: “Compared to most of our jobs, this one didn’t turn out to be too clinically involved, thankfully. But the speed of the aircraft and the support of the team meant Claire and Reuben were able to get to hospital quickly and smoothly in just over ten minutes.”

COVID-19: With your help we will fly on

It is now one year later and Reuben is celebrating his first birthday today with his mum Claire, dad Ric and three-year-old brother Jacob.

Claire said: “Reuben’s a healthy active little dude and his default setting is happy unless we’re trying to change his nappy or elicit sleep from him. He loves “playing with” and watching his older brother Jacob and his laughter is contagious, he’s often in fits of giggles with a wrinkled nose and his new four front teeth proudly on display.

“He’s been crawling for a couple of months and he’s on his feet but not off walking independently yet. It will be any day soon though and life will become exciting in even more ways.”

COVID-19: With your help we will fly on

The family originally planned to have a party for Reuben, but due to the outbreak of coronavirus unfortunately they had to cancel it.

Claire said: “We’ll be doing some extremely messy home baking on a mat on the kitchen floor and eating whatever makes it into and out of the oven. Probably followed by a sugar crazed manic bubble session in the garden which we are so fortunate to have at the moment.

“I might speak to some of our friends with little people and see if they want to celebrate in their homes at the same time and share pics or video call with us but we’ll just see.

“Our family are more aware than ever how lucky we are that Reuben and I had such amazing and speedy care a year ago when we needed it most.”

We hope to invite Claire, Reuben, and the family to our base to meet the team in the future, but for now we just want to wish Reuben a very happy birthday.