Mattoon, Illinois-based flight nurses Kelly Hamill and Dakota Shadwell of the Air Evac Lifeteam are receiving nationwide recognition for using the new Bubble CPAP non-invasive ventilation equipment to save the life of a preterm baby born at about six months gestation, who weighed only two pounds.
Hammill advocated to obtain the new equipment for its east Central Illinois crews to help young children in respiratory distress, and now both flight nurses will be honored for saving the life of a preterm baby during the American Ambulance Association Stars of Life Awards Ceremony on Nov. 5-8 in Washington.
Daily Nurse is proud to honor flight nurses Kelly Hamill and Dakota Shadwell as our Nurses of the Week for going above and beyond the call of duty in a clinically and emotionally tense situation involving a newborn.
Hamill says this call for service began one night in late spring when she, Shadwell, and their pilot were dispatched from their air base on the grounds of Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center in Mattoon to HSHS Good Shepherd Hospital in Shelbyville.
A woman had given birth prematurely at home and taken with her baby to Good Shepherd’s emergency department. Medical staff there reported the baby was having trouble breathing. Hamill and her crew advised them to use their Bubble CPAP equipment to help.
“We took care of baby and kept an eye on mom,” Hamill says. They used this equipment with a RAM Cannula oxygen delivery device to provide respiratory care until an ambulance arrived to take the baby to a neonatal facility.
Hamill, who has worked as a flight nurse for more than a decade and is the base clinical lead in Mattoon, says her previous professional experience with a neonatal intensive care unit led to her being a proponent of the new Bubble CPAP equipment, which is designed specifically for small and fragile patients.
Hamill says she figured this non-invasive ventilation equipment would be helpful for the young patients they see with RSV and other respiratory issues. She was glad to receive Bubble CPAP training through her employer’s Kentucky bases and help bring this training back home.
“I can’t be prouder of the crews for really taking hold of this project and wanting to learn about it and utilize these pieces of equipment,” she says.
Shadwell, a flight nurse for a year and a half, says local Air Evac Lifeteam crews have already used the new Bubble CPAP equipment they obtained several months ago to help a few infants, but the one at the Shelbyville call was the smallest.
“It was a team effort. Everyone involved made the outcome good,” says Shadwell. “It is an honor, but we both feel like we were just doing our jobs.”
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