By Shannon Sessions
For the Herald
LYNNWOOD — They say first impressions are everything.
For pregnant Lynnwood resident Shana Miller, 30, her introduction to Medic 7 paramedic Art Delisle came after he helped her with the difficult birth of her child, keeping the baby’s head off the umbilical cord.
"Hi. I’m Art, and what I want you to do is turn over, put your butt in the air and head down," Miller said, laughing as she described Delisle’s instructions to her.
She can laugh now because that memorable, albeit abrupt, introduction ended up saving her baby girl’s life.
Madison Kay Miller was born at 9:44 a.m. March 21, about 15 minutes after Miller’s husband, Mark, called 911.
Miller had what is called a prolapsed umbilical cord, when the baby compresses the umbilical cord, cutting off its blood and oxygen supply, Delisle said.
Babies who have a prolapsed cord and are not in a hospital almost never make it, said Miller’s obstetrician, Dr. Kimberly Dickey.
"It’s definitely miraculous when they do make it," Dickey said.
It was only recently that Madison was finally able to go home.
"If it was anyone else besides Art who was there, my baby wouldn’t have survived," Shana Miller said.
Delisle, who was a medic in New York for 10 years and has been with Medic 7 for nine years, said when he came into the room he saw about five inches of cord exposed.
"I realized immediately that the baby was in a critical life-and-death situation, and I knew I had to get that baby’s head off of the cord now," Delisle said.
In the medic unit and all the way up to the seventh floor of Stevens Hospital where the birthing clinic is, Delisle’s hand stayed in place — keeping the baby alive, barely.
"I had my fingers on the cord, and I could tell the heart rate was dropping fast. As soon as we hit the emergency room door it fell to 60, which is death for a baby," he said. "I knew it would need to be resuscitated once delivered … I knew it — and I was trying not to lose it — I was just concentrating on getting her upstairs as soon as possible."
In a matter of minutes Miller was put under anaesthetic, and the baby was removed by Caesarean section.
Delisle immediately started CPR after delivery.
"I felt the cord get released from my hand, and they threw the newborn in my arms," he said. "At birth the heart rate was 40. We got it up to 110 in about 30 seconds, and the baby started crying."
In Delisle’s 22 years of experience he has delivered 17 babies; this was the second prolapsed cord delivery.
Delisle, senior EMT instructor at Everett Community College, teaches handling prolapsed cord deliveries as one of the four critical things that could happen in field deliveries.
Shannon Sessions is the editor for the Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace editions of the Enterprise Newspapers. Call her at 425-673-6531 or email at sessions@heraldnet.com.
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