CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte area hospitals have been getting patients from hospitals along the coast – including some with the most critical needs and the tiniest evacuees.
"There were babies at a hospital in Wilmington that needed to transport to a similar level care,” explained Megan Elliot, nurse manager at Levine Children’s Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
Sa’Briyah Brown weighed just one pound, five ounces when she was born at 25 weeks in Lumberton, N.C. She was rushed to a Wilmington hospital because she needed a lot of help, but then she had to be flown to Levine in Charlotte to avoid Florence's direct hit.
Baby Dariel was born at 23 weeks and also weighed barely more than a pound. A specially equipped medical center airplane from Charlotte transported both babies.
“It took about two days to get this together, started planning on Monday, and then the babies came on Tuesday," Elliot said.
Both need very special care that Levine is set up to provide.
“Whenever babies are born at that stage, their lungs are not developed so they need ventilator, extra respiratory support so have to go to NICU.”
The good news, despite coming very early during a major disaster, both babies are clearly fighters.
“The babies are doing well, both on ventilators, worked to get them stable last night.”
