Inquest hears emergency medical technician wouldn't handle fatal birth any differently

An emergency medical technician has told an inquest even with the benefit of hindsight, she wouldn't have handled a birth where a 33-year-old woman later died any differently.

Maria Hiune Pirihira Neho was 39-weeks pregnant when she went into cardiac arrest and died after her uterus ruptured during a home birth in February 2023. Her baby also died.

An inquest into the deaths started last week and will hear from those involved in Neho's labour, from her midwife to responding St John staff, Waikato Hospital staff and experts.

St John's Emma Pirecki told Coroner Ian Telford in Hamilton on Monday an offer for a paramedic was denied by Neho's midwife when she arrived at the scene with another EMT.

But then when she saw the patient, she described her as someone experiencing 10 out of 10 excruciating pain and distress.

"She's crying, guarding, quiet. Not conversing like you normally would with questions... it's like you're overwhelmed with pain. You can't possibly do anything other than feel this pain.

"I wouldn't have said personally that is a normal presentation. I do agree with people in pain and restless in labour. There are going to be some similarities, but there wasn't any stopping. It was continuous."

Neho then collapsed due to what was thought to be a seizure and Pirecki called for more help.

Space constraints meant they had to get Neho into a transfer chair and out of the house before being moved onto a stretcher and it was then when the mother of three went into cardiac arrest.

CPR began in the ambulance and Pirecki was asked if at a point she felt the situation was "too big" for the pair of EMTs and the midwives.

She said they were trained to deal with cardiac arrests but said "in that moment, I realised, man I wish she was in hospital. I still was aware that I'm trained to do my job and you deal with what you have."

Pirecki said even with the benefit of hindsight she wouldn't have managed the scene any differently.

"This is definitely one of those jobs that you reflect constantly and you think, could I have done this, what could we have done? But I still have come to the same point."

She said in a perfect world the scene would have been different, but it wasn't, and they had to deal with the realities of the situation.

The inquest continues.