LONDON – A Muslim medical student rushed to help a heavily pregnant woman give birth at a metro station in London after hearing her scream for help, Islam21c reported.

“I knew a little bit of what to do. I had to lower the woman. I took my jumper off and wrapped the baby in it,” 21-year-old University College London (UCL) student Hamzah Selim said.

Initially, he thought a fight had broken out when he heard the screams until he saw the pregnant woman standing in a “pool of blood” next to her sister.

In an atmosphere that he described as “utter panic”, Selim helped the woman sit down and delivered the baby, wrapping the newborn in his jumper and handing him to his mother.

“I held the baby in horror. It wasn’t responding so I immediately went to the worst possible thought,” the Muslim future doctor said.

At first, Selim had called for “someone more qualified”, however after receiving no response, the medical student who has no training in midwifery began to test the baby’s reflexes to get a reaction.

After rubbing the baby’s cheek, his horror turned to delight when he coughed.

“I was in utter panic at the moment I saw no reaction, yet, shortly after it just coughed in my face, and it was the best moment of my life,” Selim said delightedly.

Shortly after, the paramedics arrived and provided the mother and the baby privacy as they carried out preliminary checks on both of them at the metro station before being taken to the hospital.

The British Transport Police Network responded to the incident via an official Twitter statement saying: “We’d like to wish a huge congratulations to the mum and her new baby, born today at #WarrenStreet, We didn’t get there in time to deliver the baby, but we still love a #goodnews story.”

The estimates of 2009 suggested a total of about 2.4 million Muslims over all the UK.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the number of Muslims in Britain could now be around 3 million. Between 2001 and 2009 the Muslim population increased roughly ten times faster than the rest of society.

Most Muslim immigrants to Britain came from formerly occupied nations. From the 1950s onwards, the growing Muslim population has led to a number of notable mosques being established, including the East London Mosque, London Central Mosque, Manchester Central Mosque, and London Markaz.

Reports assured that thousands of British people convert to Islam annually and there are approximately 100,000 converts to Islam in Britain, where they run two mosques.

According to a Labour Force Survey estimate, the total number of Muslims in Britain in 2008 was 2,422,000, around 4% of the total population.