(21 May 2004) 1. Wide shot of Sierra Mixteca region 2. Ines Ramirez Perez, mother who performed a caesarean on herself four years ago 3. Perez's four year old son Orlando 4. Medium shot of Orlando 5. Perez, mother of Orlando and Antonio Cruz, father of Orlando returning home from work 6. Ines and two of her children at home 7. Antonio Cruz, husband of Ines 8. Antonio and Ines at home 9. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Ines Ramirez Perez, Mother who performed a caesarean section on herself: Q: What did she do? "She (her cousin) said to me I am afraid, why do you do this to yourself? I had already cut myself when this woman arrived, then she took away the knife, she threw it away and left, running towards the municipal police." 10. Ines holding the knife she used to performed the incision 11. SOUNDBITE (Spanish): Ines Ramirez Perez, Mother who performed a caesarean section on herself: "When I cut myself it was a relief." Q: So you were remembering how to cut? "Yes, yes." Q: was there any light? "My husband was deer hunting. I thought I had this baby inside me and I had to get it out." 12. Huixtepec hospital 13. Dr. Onorio Galvan 14. Various STILLS of Dr. Galvan's medical record from the case 15. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Onorio Galvan, Doctor at Huixtepec Hospital: "It is a miracle that she operated on herself without damaging any vital organs. One thing that allowed this was the her position at the moment of the incision. Later, when I asked her, she told me that she had seen how the goats were operated on and that this somehow guided her on how to cut herself" 16. Various shots of Ines and Orlando STORYLINE: Four years ago a woman in Sierra Mixteca in Mexico gave birth to a healthy baby boy after performing a caesarean section on herself with a kitchen knife. Ines Ramirez Perez, a 44 year old mother of seven, opted to perform the caesarean section in her eighth month of pregnancy, while her husband was away deer hunting. Ines and her family live in an isolated rural area that lacks of water, electricity or any sanitary service, some eight hours away from the nearest hospital. On the day of her "operation" she had been suffering labour pains, and feared her baby would die in in uterus, as her previous one had. Perez took several swigs of rubbing alcohol, fetched a large butcher-style knife used to slaughter animals, then went and sat down on a wooden bench inside the house and began to cut. She took about an hour to complete the procedure - then fainted. A female cousin and a local health assistant found her and stitched her up with a regular needle and thread before leaving to get help. They carried her up a hillside on a straw mat, loaded her into a small Volkswagen bus and drove two-and-a-half hours to the nearest clinic to stabilise her. Perez was given fluids, then loaded into the back of a pickup truck to be taken to hospital. Eight hours later, and more than 12 hours after the operation, Perez and her baby arrived at Huixtepec Hospital where she was examined and sutured her properly, She stayed in the hospital for short recovery period. Onorio Galvan, a doctor at Huixtepec Hospital attributed Perez's survival to the position she was in when she began to operate on herself. Galvan said Perez was the first recorded case of a woman who performed a caesarean section on herself and survived. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/6aa254760e439b498dac220762f007eb Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork