A very special delivery!
Last week, a Kentucky obstetrician was preparing to give birth to her second child at the hospital when someone needed urgent medical attention — a woman in labor two doors down.
After learning the baby’s heartbeat was dropping dangerously low, Dr. Amanda Hess had stepped out of her own hospital bed and into action.
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Since the on-call doctor was out of the building, Dr. Hess felt she had no choice but to go to fellow patient Leah Halliday-Johnson‘s room to deliver the baby — hours before giving birth to her own baby girl.
She explained to People:
“It was urgent that baby was delivered right away. Then I walked back and one hour later I started contractions.”
It all happened last Sunday after the 38-year-old checked into Frankfort Regional Medical Center, the hospital where she is also staffed, and waited to begin the procedures to induce her labor.
Once settled in, Hess glanced at the computer screen in her room that alerts the staff about patient’s conditions. She noticed that a neighboring woman was having complications with her pregnancy; the baby’s heartbeat kept falling during contractions.
After hearing screams of pain from down the hall, Hess felt the need to step in. She recalled:
“I heard nurses running down the hallway. ‘Do you guys need some help?’”
They did, in fact. The on-call OB/GYN had left the building right before Hess and Halliday-Johnson were admitted.
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Since the other doctor was still about 10 minutes from returning to the hospital, nurses asked Halliday-Johnson to try not to push — but because the fetus had the umbilical cord loosely wrapped around her neck, Hess knew there was no time to waste, remembering:
“I said, ‘We don’t have time for that’… She really wanted to push.”
After covering her backside with another gown, Hess left her room and went to Halliday-Johnson’s to deliver the healthy baby. The on-call doctor arrived shortly after and finished the procedure.
Following the delivery, the doctor returned to her own room and started the medication to induce her own labor. 11 hours later, her daughter Ellen Joyce had arrived at 6 pounds, 12 ounces!
Though the nurses would have likely made the delivery had Hess not been available, the Kentucky doctor was happy to lend a hand, noting it was “a perfect way to get my own labor started.”
[Image via WKYT.]
Source: perez hilton