BBC Radio 2 breakfast show host Zoe Ball has revealed her Thursday took an unexpected turn after she helped rush a ‘heavily’ pregnant woman to hospital.
The much-loved British broadcaster revealed on air this morning that after her show concluded yesterday, she went home and upon parking, noticed ‘a bit of commotion’ in the street.
Unsure what was happening, Zoe, 53, went to investigate and soon realised a woman had fallen over; to make matters scarier, the woman was heavily pregnant.
‘I’m thinking: “Oh my goodness, I hope she’s alright”‘, Zoe, who shares son Woody, 23, and daughter Nelly, 14, with ex-husbandNorman Cook, told her listeners.
‘Anyway, it turns out she’s very heavily pregnant. Really lovely lady. She’s had a fall. She was very shaken up. She was really winded and quite frightened, obviously, because she’s worrying about the baby.’
Thankfully, the woman was surrounded by plenty of helpful people who were doing their best to help her get back on her feet.
But upon realising the woman was about one month away from giving birth, they collectively agreed that she go to the hospital to make sure her baby was okay, with Zoe offering to take her as she was the only one with a car nearby.
Calling the woman by ‘T’ to respect her privacy, Zoe admitted to listeners that she was slightly worried T would give birth in her car, so she recruited another woman called Jess to come with them.
‘I was like: “Jess, will you come with us? Because you might have to do hot towels or something,”‘ she said.
As the three women drive to the hospital, the radio host said she felt the sense of urgency to get there: ‘I was thinking: “I need run the blue lights on the top of the car.” I’ve never been an ambulance before.’
They especially felt on edge when T wasn’t able to reach any of her family, including her husband, who was in a work meeting, and her mother.
T’s friends also weren’t answering.
Thankfully, after arriving at the hospital, Zoe and Jess exchanged numbers with T before leaving her in the safe hands of doctors and while they had to ‘wait all day’, they did find out ‘she and lovely baby were OK.’
While the baby was ‘absolutely fine’, Zoe told her listeners that T had unfortunately suffered some fractured ribs during the fall: ‘Poor love, when you’re heavily pregnant, you’ve got to go through labour, that is going to be painful.’
‘So I’m sending T and her family lots of love and safe happy landings for when you have the baby.’
Zoe concluded her story by telling listeners: ‘You just never know where your day’s going to go, do you?’
The broadcaster recently returned to air after a six-week summer break. It remains unclear why she was away for so long, but there is one rumour that she quickly shut down.
After receiving a text message from a listener who jokingly suggested she had gone to Turkey for ‘a new face and teeth’, Zoe had a laugh but said that wasn’t the reason at all.
Her absence, which was filled by Scott Mills, came as a surprise to her loyal listeners as she has hosted the Radio 2 breakfast show since 2019, after taking over from Chris Evans.
Upon taking the reigns, Zoe became the first female breakfast show host in the network’s history, marking another achievement for the star, who was also Radio 1 Breakfast Show’s first female presenter.