BOTHELL — A while back, 5-year-old Nolawi Bruk asked his mother an important question.
He knew his brother, 9-year-old Nabu, was born at EvergreenHealth Medical Center in Kirkland. What about himself, didn’t he have a hospital?
Hosana Hailu told her youngest son that his story was a little more complicated. It started with a storm. On Jan. 11, 2011, the night he was born, more than two inches of snow had fallen on the ground. Hailu had a prenatal check-up that morning, and the doctor told her to come back in a week if she hadn’t gone into labor.
Around 8 p.m., the pain started. She called the doctor’s office. She was told it didn’t sound like labor yet.
“The pain became worse and worse,” she said. “I am screaming then. It started snowing again.”
Her husband, Bruk Belachew, wanted to drive her to the hospital. She didn’t know if they had time. It was the worst snow they’d seen in years. They called 911.
About 20 minutes later, firefighters and a paramedic arrived from Snohomish County Fire District 7. The crews helped mother and father into an ambulance. Nabu, then 4, stayed with family friends.
Firefighters “kept trying to make me calm,” Hailu said. “I’m screaming. I’m asking them, ‘How can I be calm?’ ”
She laughs now. It wasn’t so funny at the time.
Baby Nolawi, who goes by “Noli” at home, apparently decided he wasn’t waiting any longer.
“As soon as they hopped onto 405, on the ramp, Noli started crying,” Belachew said.
Everything happened so quickly, and then life went on with a new baby at home.
A few months ago, Noli’s fifth birthday was coming up. He had a party planned at Mad Science, an interactive children’s laboratory in Bellevue. His favorite presents were Hot Wheels and Legos.
Hailu got to thinking about that night in the ambulance.
She checked the fire department’s website and saw she could schedule a station tour for kids. She decided on Fire Station 72, along 180th Street SE between Clearview and Mill Creek.
They couldn’t schedule the tour for Noli’s birthday, but it was close. She hoped for a chance to thank the caring men who had helped her.
The boys saw the fire trucks and training equipment and they played with a hockey stick they found.
“I thinked, awesome,” Noli said of the tour.
But the ambulance was out on another emergency. After about an hour, the family was readying to leave.
Then, “the garage opened and the ambulance is coming,” Hailu said.
Paramedic Troy Smith happened to be returning to the station at the same time. He overheard Hailu telling her story.
Smith told her that he and fellow firefighter Sam Langheld had delivered a baby in a snowstorm five years ago. They had to put chains on the ambulance’s tires. Firefighter Tom Henderson drove 20 mph to get to the hospital.
A medic for 20 years, Smith counts Nolawi as his fifth baby delivered in the field. On the way to the hospital in the storm, “everything was completely shut down,” Smith said. “It was a long bumpy ride to get there.”
At the fire station in January, he asked Hailu, “Was that you?”
She told him, “I don’t remember you, sorry, but it’s nice to meet you.”
The reunion was a lucky one, Smith said Wednesday. Firefighters often help people but never hear what happens to them after their emergency.
“It was just fortuitous that she scheduled the tour on a day I’m working and I’m happening to be walking by,” he said. “It was really neat, to be able to see Nolawi five years later and hear the story from her perspective.”
There were hugs all around and pictures taken on the ambulance to commemorate the reunion, he said.
Noli’s parents, both in their 30s, have been married for a decade now. Originally from Ethiopia, they both work in the software industry.
Nabu, their older son, is the hard worker. He loves to read books, and he memorizes his church hymns with astonishing speed and focus. He knows English and his parents’ native language, Amharic. When asked how many languages he uses, he asks for a clarification, “read or speak?”
Little Noli’s personality still is emerging. He likes trains, and he tosses his blue striped conductor hat in the air from his head and catches it in his hands with zeal. He’s not too big yet for hide-and-seek. He expects to start kindergarten in the fall.
He always looks for a way to make things fun, even during his lessons, according to his father.
“He likes playing,” Belachew said. “He added lots of flavor to the family.”
Now, every time they pass Fire Station 72, Noli tells his mother, “This is my hospital, where I was born.”
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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