On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a local resident had a placental abruption and delivered her baby at just 23 weeks and 6 days old. The patient got to Mobridge Regional Hospital right before her water broke. Dr. Bob was on call and called Sioux Falls to get a NICU and OB flight team dispatched immediately.

The MRH&C team immediately gave meds to the baby for his lungs to mature faster. Dr. Bob focused on mom–telling her that she could NOT to push under any circumstances and that she couldn’t have the baby until the Sioux Falls team got there. Baby had other plans and was born at 1 lb 5 oz and 11.5” long soon after. Despite the infant’s tiny size, Jess Heinrich, a NICU nurse before joining the MRH&C team, successfully intubated. The nursing staff had to put a line in the baby, and although they had never put one into an infant this small, they got it on the first try.

The new mother was hemorraging, and Dr. Bob was busy with the infant. But he had called Dr. Schaffer, Dori, and Cathy Mickelson in–and it was all hands on deck. Dr. Schaffer came running in to the OB and said, ‘Unlock the bed right now, we are going into surgery.” He was able to put in a Bakri balloon to stop the bleeding until the flight team arrived.

Both mother and infant were loaded and flown to Sioux Falls. When they checked into the OB unit there, the registration staff exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, are you part of that 1 lb team?!” Both the ER and NICU teams in Sioux Falls said Mobridge did an off-the-charts job. Baby only had a chance because of how well they did, and both mother and baby were saved by their quick response, competence in the face of an emergency, and teamwork.

The Foundation is currently working on the Healthy Futures Capital Campaign to raise funds needed to ensure our medical staff have facilities and tools at their disposal that make it easier for them to pull off feats like this one. We believe all residents, no matter how rural, should have access to high quality healthcare services when they need them most. As an organization, we are investing in our infrastructure to help facilitate this type of life-saving emergency care for our patients.