Pregnant woman gives birth while being rescued from floods and raced to hospital in a boat

A rescue team raced a pregnant woman through floodwaters to the hospital - as she gave birth mid-way through the journey.

Paramedics received an emergency call from the mother-to-be when her car broke down and she went into labour in Pattani, southern Thailand, on December 3.

The road was flooded so the team sent a pick-up truck rescue vehicle with hospital staff riding in the back.

They had to use a boat to reach the woman's vehicle as it was submerged in water that was too deep for the car to travel through and load her into the passenger seat.

They then towed the boat behind the truck, so that it glided smoothly along the surface of the knee-deep floods.

During the four-mile journey, the woman reported experiencing severe pain and she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. They named her Nam - which means water.

Somboon Kittisak, one of the paramedics from the Surat Thani Kusonsattha Foundation that carried out the rescue, said: 'The call was received about a woman giving birth while she was stuck in floods. We arrived as quickly as could and used a boat to reach her because we could not open the door to the truck and it was too bumpy and wet for her to lie in the back.'

A nurse who had joined the rescue team was able to care for the mother and baby for the rest of the two-mile journey to the hospital. Both of them are doing fine.

The incident unfolded during severe floods that lashed southern Thailand and towns in Malaysia near the border.

The country's Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said more than 300,000 households were affected and 40,000 residents were still in emergency shelters on Monday, December 2. There were at least 25 deaths in Thailand and six in Malaysia.

In Malaysia, five days of ferocious rainfall last hammered its eastern coast, killing six people and wrecking homes and roads in the northeastern state of Kelantan and neighbouring Terengganu.

Ministers advised their citizens against travelling to Thailand.