Medic Crew Saves Newborn Infant

Ambulance and medic crews from the Rescue Squad worked closely with a crew from Bethesda Engine 720 to save the life of a newborn infant who was not breathing.

Late in the morning of Saturday, September 25, Rescue Squad Ambulance 726 was dispatched along with the Bethesda engine company to an address on Grosvenor Lane in Bethesda for an unknown emergency.  While responding, they were given updated information that the unknown emergency was for the birth of a child who may not be breathing.  Medic 741 was added to the original dispatch.

Upon arrival, the crew of Engine 720 found a mother who had just given birth to a child about 3 months before her due date lying in an empty bath tub. They reported the child was blue and not breathing or moving, and wrapped in a towel with the umbilical cord still attached to both mom and baby. The crew from A726 arrived immediately thereafter and quickly cut the cord.  The engine company and ambulance crews worked together to cover the child in a blanket and apply blow-by oxygen.  The child then began moving and cried a little, so a member of the engine company carried the child down a flight of stairs to meet the medic unit, which had just arrived on the scene.  The remainder of the personnel focused on getting the mother out of the tub and onto a cot so she could be transported to the hospital.

The medic unit kept the child warm and continued to administer blow-by oxygen while transporting to Shady Grove Hospital, while the ambulance followed behind with mom.

The medic crew was met at the door of the hospital by the neonatologist and her team, who took the child to the pediatric emergency area, where the child was intubated as a precaution, and placed in an incubator.  A follow-up call to the hospital later that evening revealed that the child was responding very well and will in all probability continue to thrive.

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