by Karla Wilson
If you work for BC Emergency Health Services as a paramedic, an emergency medical dispatcher or an emergency medical call taker, you’re familiar with the organization’s ‘stork pin’. This honour is bestowed upon paramedics and dispatch employees to celebrate and recognize those who provide care and support during childbirth emergencies.
But what happens when paramedics attend a birth that isn’t human?
Paramedics from Prince George, in northern British Columbia, were recently celebrated for their extraordinary efforts in helping a moose calf that had been traumatically birthed when his mother was struck by a vehicle at high speed on a highway.
On May 25, 2025 paramedics were dispatched to the scene of a motor vehicle accident where a truck collided with a moose on Highway 16 outside of Prince George. With speeds of 100 km per hour on this stretch of road in northern B.C., these incidents aren’t uncommon.
Primary Care Paramedics Jade Giam and Alex Maritsas arrived first and attended to the injured passenger, while Jennifer Shaw and Tasha (Tash) Austin were next on-scene and attended to the driver. Off Car Unit Chief Chandra (Chuck) Frederickson arrived soon after.
While assessing the driver, he told Jennifer and Tash the moose had a baby. Jennifer asked the driver if he seen a baby moose and avoided hitting it.
“He said: ‘No, she had the baby when I hit her’,” Jennifer recalls.
The paramedic crews helped one another and ensured both the driver and passenger were stable — then, Jennifer went looking for the calf.
“I found him in the ditch,” she says. “He was cold, wet, and making tiny baby sounds. I grabbed a blanket from our ambulance and wrapped him up.”
An officer from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was also on-scene, and she and Jennifer strategized about what to do with the calf. They decided to place him in the back of the police cruiser for transport to the local conservation office.
“He just sat there,” Jennifer says. “He was so shocked, I think, about how life started.”
After bringing the vehicle’s driver to the hospital, Jennifer and Tash went to the conservation office to check on the calf after a quick pit-stop to Jennifer’s farm.
“I got a goat milk replacer – it’s what we use on the farm for all baby animals – and a turkey baster,” Jennifer says. “We warmed up the milk, I got him to eat, and I tried to stand him up. Horses and calves generally get up on their own. I wasn’t really sure when a baby moose stands up but figured he would have to get up fairly soon. I wanted to see if he had any injuries.”
“He was really cold still,” she continues. “We started working to actively warm him and dry him. I told the conservation officer the moose needed colostrum and IV fluids. Of course, I’m not licensed to start an IV on a moose.”
As the mother moose had been devastatingly killed by the truck, something about the birth story didn’t add up. Jennifer and Tash returned to the hospital to ask the driver how he knew about the calf. Against all odds, it turned out the pregnant moose had expelled her calf upon impact with his vehicle. Miraculously unharmed by the accident, the calf had flown through the windshield and landed inside the vehicle on the passenger’s lap.
The next morning, the baby moose was taken from the Prince George conservation office to the Northern Lights Wildlife Society (NLWS), where he began to experience medical distress.
“We got the calf – it seemed to be okay had a good suck reflex,” co-founder of NLWS Angelika Langen says. “Then he took a turn for the worse. We rushed him to the vet, and they put it on life support, IV fluids, vitamin shots and so on.”
“When the vet was observing him from the outside, he noticed he was peeing out of navel cord and out of the bladder. That is something we see in dogs when they are born prematurely and a connection hasn’t formed,” Angelika explains. “The animal just wasn’t completely formed internally yet to be able to survive.”
Angelika has nothing but praise for the first responders who tried to help the calf.
“The work they did together was absolutely incredible,” she says. “They did everything possible to give this animal a chance, but sometimes it’s just not meant to be. The conservation officer was extremely impressed and happy to have people like that to work with – both the police and paramedics.”
When Acting Off Car Unit Chief Jodie Dobry heard about the heroic efforts of the paramedics at the Prince George station, she felt compelled to recognize them. Jodie ordered a ‘moose pin’ for each paramedic involved in the call and set up a presentation for the employees. Manager Darren Waller wrote a letter of appreciation to each paramedic involved with the call, and administrators created a Moose Award certificate.
“We were all so giddy about the whole thing,” Jodie says. “I love surprising people, so I said to the crews that were involved that Darren wanted to talk to us and debrief about the call with the moose. When they walked into the station, we all started clapping – then Jenn started crying a little bit.”
At the small, informal ceremony, Manager Darren Waller read his letter of appreciation aloud:
Although the calf ultimately did not survive, it experienced comfort, warmth, and kindness in its short life — all because of your willingness to help, even when the situation was wildly outside the norm.
You balanced medical care, empathy, and an unexpected moose-birth subplot with grace and calm under pressure. It wasn’t in the protocols, but you handled it as if it were.
Thank you for your adaptability, compassion, and dedication — to all creatures great and small. And no, this doesn’t count as official training in wildlife pediatrics… but maybe it should.
Jennifer Shaw was touched by the recognition.
“I think, as paramedics, we’re all kind of uncomfortable with praise,” she says. “We do the job, and it makes us uncomfortable to be in the spotlight. [Jodie] was so thoughtful, and the letter made me cry. It was very touching.”
Although a stork pin and award are common occurrences across the organization, this is the first time a ‘moose pin’ has been issued at BCEHS.
L to R: Jennifer Shaw, Chandra Frederickson, Tash Austin
L to R: Jodie Dobry, Chandra (Chuck) Frederickson, Darren Waller
L to R: Darren Waller, Alex Maritsas
After working for 10 years for BCEHS, Jodie Dobry says this motor vehicle incident is unlike anything she’s been a part of.
“We’ve seen moose versus cars a lot, but never something like this,” she says. “This was insane. Somehow when the mama moose hit the car, it beautifully and traumatically c-sectioned – so the car must have hit the moose in a way that didn’t hit the stomach. I don’t know how this was possible – how this baby moose didn’t break anything or die instantly. It’s just incredible.”
Paramedic Jennifer Shaw also says the uniqueness of the call will also be embedded in her memory forever.
“That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever been a part of,” she says.
“As a paramedic, we get used to drug overdoses, cardiac arrests, and traumas. But nothing in your training prepares you for the out of the ordinary, like holding a baby moose. It was remarkable. What touched me the most was his will to live.”
British Columbia has an estimated moose population of 115,000 to 192,00. 2020 data from the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia shows that there are about 11,000 animal-related collisions every year, almost 1,000 people were injured by wildlife collisions, and four people were killed by collisions with wildlife.
“We do quite a bit of car vs. moose responses,” Jodie Dobry says. “[The city] tries to do as much as they can to stop them coming on to the highway. They cut the brush so the cars can see the moose and the deer. They even put salt licks up to deter them from coming on to the highway, because moose come to the highway to lick the salt.”
Northern Lights Wildlife Society founder Angelika Langen says it’s a group effort, with many organizations across B.C. involved in helping to cut down accidents that injure and kill wildlife.
For the paramedics involved in this remarkable call, the moose pin will always symbolize more than just an ordinary response call. This was a night of care, responsibility, and humanity in an unexpected form.
Although the moose’s outcome affected everyone at the Prince George ambulance station, it also cemented the bonds of their work family – reminding these paramedics, and others across the organization, of why they chose this career: a dedication to care for others in their time of need.
“As human beings, it really drove home the point that I’ve always known. We are the caretakers of this planet and it’s our responsibility to care for the little beings on this planet,” says Jennifer Shaw. “Due to human error and accident, [the moose] lost his mommy, and she would have done a good job raising him. Without her, it’s our responsibility to step in and help that creature.”
