Missing Austrian woman gives birth to twins in Finnish Lapland
Former beauty queen's disappearance stirs up Austrian media
|
|
"Missing wine princess gives birth to twins in Finland!" trumpeted Austrian tabloids on Saturday. The Finnish daily newspaper Kaleva reported on the matter on Monday.
The woman, a runaway from a Viennese hospital, went missing a week earlier, appearing in Rovaniemi in Lapland last Saturday. Her dramatic disappearance caused much excitement in her native country.
In the fifth month of pregnancy, the woman’s delivery had started, and she was rushed by ambulance to the Central Hospital of Lapland in Rovaniemi, where she had an emergency caesarean section and gave birth to two premature infants, both girls.
The doctors and authorities were not willing to reveal any further details about the woman and her circumstances, or where she was found.
Originally the woman had been a patient in a mental hospital, from where she was transferred to a Viennese maternity hospital. On July 27th she vanished from the hospital wearing only her hospital clothes. At that point, police contacted the media in order to find the woman, who was suffering from psychological problems.
As soon as the Austrian media discovered that the woman had been elected ”Miss Wine” in the state of Burgenland some 15 years earlier, her flight made headlines, starting from the tabloids and spreading also to other newspapers and the national TV news.
The fact that the woman vanished into thin air from a Viennese hospital and then reappeared in Lapland a week later was particularly fascinating, says Florian Hitz from the Austrian tabloid Kronen.
As far as is known, the pregnant woman travelled 3,000 km from Vienna to Rovaniemi through Denmark and Sweden, without a passport, taking trains and buses. She said that the reason for her flight was that she wanted to give birth to her babies the natural way, among the Sámi people of Lapland.
The daily newspaper Österreich sent reporter Jürgen Müllner to Rovaniemi on Sunday, describing the woman’s trip to Finland as a drama par excellence.
"An Austrian woman’s mysterious odyssey to the Arctic Circle - doesn't it contain all the ingredients of a great story?" Müllner commented over the phone from Rovaniemi on Monday.
The infants will be cared for at the Oulu University Hospital for the next few weeks, while the mother will return to Austria already on Wednesday.
According to the Austrian Embassy in Helsinki, the babies are well considering the circumstances.
Helsingin Sanomat
|
| 7.8.2007 - TODAY |
 Missing Austrian woman gives birth to twins in Finnish Lapland
|
|
