When Jean Andres, DNP, RN, arrived at the parking garage at Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland, she instantly heard the “very distinct scream” delivery room teams recognize. As the hospital’s labor and delivery director, she leaped into action.
Dr. Janelle Cooper, an OB/GYN, was delivering Elsa Artunez’s baby in the backseat of a truck.
Artunez’s grandfather was rushing her to the hospital. He stopped the truck in the parking garage by an entrance, which would have put Artunez only a few feet from the front desk, where a wheelchair would have transported her to the delivery unit.
But there was no time to put the car in park because the baby was coming.
When Dr. Cooper reached the truck, the baby’s head was already out, and Andres heard the scream.
“I put my lunch bag down and called the team to let them know we had a delivery in the garage. And I proceeded to assist Dr. Cooper with the delivery that she had performed.”
Daily Nurse honors Jean Andres as the Nurse of the Week for providing exceptional care and exemplifying the hospital’s #RISE values of Respect, Inclusion, Service, and Excellence to Artunez and the newborn.
Artunez gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Yesenia Patricia, and surprisingly, for a first-time mother, Doctor Cooper noted, it went quickly. “She did really well.”
Once Yesenia was born, Andres dried her off and kept her warm until the medical team came and took the family to a maternity room in the hospital.
“The fact that it was in a garage was very unconventional, but it was not chaotic,” Andres says. “It was a very beautiful birth.”
Baby Yesenia isn’t the first to be born in the medical center’s parking garage, Andres and Dr. Cooper note, nonplussed. “We delivered a baby in the elevator this week.”
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