Already a mom of two, Lindsey Ford knew instinctively that something was wrong with her baby boy Munro as soon as he was born on May 4, 2014. When the nurse laid her infant on her chest, she could see his lips were blue and unlike normal newborns, he wasn’t crying.
She expressed her concern to the nurse but was told Munro’s symptoms were likely due to the room being unusually cold due to an A/C problem. “They said, ‘He’s OK’ and took him to the nursery, but Munro wouldn’t wake up for anything. He wouldn’t feed, he didn’t cry at all, and I knew something was wrong.”
When Lindsey and her baby were sent home two days later, she watched Munro carefully. “I set an alarm for every three hours to feed him because he never cried and never seemed hungry,” she remembered. “The first time he did cry was when he was five days old, when he started coughing up secretions and mucus.”
Only days later, while she was in line to pick up her five-year-old daughter from school, she was alarmed to hear Munro cry since it was so rare. “I looked back at him and saw secretions coming from his nose and mouth, and he was having a hard time breathing,” said Lindsey.
She called the kids’ pediatrician, Dr. [Suwarna] Tilak. “When I told her his symptoms, she said, ‘Take him to the ER in Fleming Island right now or he could die.’”
When Lindsey arrived at the Wolfson Children’s Emergency Center at Baptist Clay, she told the registration representative that her baby needed help. ER nurse Jeremy Morrison, RN, said, “I stepped into the waiting room, and she immediately put her baby in my arms. She said, ‘My baby’s not breathing. Please do something!’ I am a father of three myself, so I was very aware at that moment of the responsibility and trust she gave me when she put her baby in my care.”
Jeremy and the family walked straight back to the pediatric resuscitation room with Munro, passing by pediatric emergency physician Shareen Ismail, MD, at the desk. She said, “When I saw Jeremy’s face as he carried the baby to the resuscitation room, I had no doubt he had good reason to be concerned.”
Nearly every nurse and clinical staff member in the ER converged on the room. Jeremy said, “We each took our role to save Munro.”
A nasal canula that administered high flow-rate oxygen didn’t make a difference, so the team had to secure an airway by intubating the baby. “Munro started fighting and kicking shortly afterward. It was clear he was a strong kid. It was a reassuring sign seeing his strength,” said Dr. Ismail. “I explained to Mom that Munro would need the special care of Wolfson Children’s Hospital to rule out causes of the apnea, but that it could be as simple as a young brain that didn’t properly signal his body to breathe, something he would likely outgrow.”
While working on Munro, the Wolfson Children’s Emergency Center at Baptist Clay staff had already alerted the Kids Kare Mobile ICU team to transport the infant to Wolfson Children’s Hospital. The Kids Kare team worked on keeping Munro stable all the way to the hospital.
“He was in PICU for two days, and they ran all kinds of tests,” said Lindsey. “They did a spinal tap to check for meningitis, and they did cultures and blood work on him that all came back normal. By the third day, he was transferred to a regular unit because he had improved so much.”
Munro, now almost five weeks old, went home May 15, healthy and happy, and with very relieved parents.
“I will never be able to thank the [the pediatric ER] team at Baptist Clay nor Wolfson Children’s Hospital enough for saving my baby,” said Lindsey.
Dr. Ismail said, “Caring for a child is very different than caring for an adult, and we are very lucky to have a team that is specially trained and qualified to care for ill children. If you have a heart problem, you would want to be in the hands of a heart specialist. For a sick child, there are no better hands to be in than our pediatric emergency medicine specialists at the Wolfson Children’s ERs in Jacksonville and at Baptist Clay.”
Way to go Baptist ER staff.thats why I love working with the people i work with always on point and doing what we can.
Thire is no better staff than Wolfson they saved my great granddaughters life they are very very nice and good to thire children up thire ,glad the baby is ok ,as for Oakley she is doing very well weighs 10 lb 2 oz eating well and growing ,thanks to the staff .Love Them All I Thank God for them. Glynda Burch grate grandmother of Oakley Wheeler
On behalf of Wolfson Children’s Hospital, thank you for your comments and your trust in us.
Ok, so I had to take my 18 mo there. It was not a life threatening situation, she had fractured her humerus. But it was painful for her and she was scared. We were scared, because there was a possibility she would need some surgery.
EVERYONE there was extra nice. From the desk personnel, to the lab technician that was done for the day but saw us arriving and went back to run a test so we would not have to wait.
I hope we don’t have to go back there, but if we do, I trust that they will do their best for us.
clarifying: We took her to Wolfson Children’s Hospital