Swooping in to Aid a Child in Crisis

By John F. Bonfatti

When her 3-year-old daughter Courtney vomited, Marcie Karroach wasn’t overly concerned.

"I’m a first-time mom, with an only child," she said while sitting in her home in this Cattaraugus County town 70 miles south of Buffalo. "I didn’t want to be the over-reacting mom."

But when the vomiting didn’t stop and Courtney complained of terrible stomach pain, Karroach took her daughter to a clinic in Cuba, where doctors soon realized they had a serious medical crisis they couldn’t handle.

Courtney, it turned out, had intussusception, the most common abdominal emergency for children under 2. With this condition, segments of the bowel retract into each other, much like sections of a telescope. That creates an obstruction that, if untreated, can lead to serious complications.

"Time is important," said Dr, Kathleen Lillis, attending emergency room physician at Women and Children’s Hospital. "If it persists without it being treated or recognized, patients can quickly lose blood supply to that part of the bowel, and that part has to be removed."

Enter Mercy Flight, which stopped at Women and Children’s to pick up a special pediatric care team, then flew to Cuba to pick up Courtney, who by this time was severely dehydrated and pretty much nonresponsive.

"It made me feel better knowing they had their own crew," said Karroach.

Courtney, now 5, was born prematurely at Women and Children’s, and ever since then, her mother said the staff at the hospital has been very proactive in monitoring her progress.

The hospital staff instructed Karroach on what to look for in case the condition recurred. Sure enough, a year later, it did.

This time, Courtney got the treatment she needed at the clinic in Cuba.

Helicopter flights to the hospital have caused friction in the neighborhood since before the hospital proposed building a landing pad for them.

The helipad was built in late 2005, and some neighbors still don’t believe it’s a good idea to have helicopters landing regularly in a residential area.

Former Hodge Street Block Club president Alan Donatelli doesn’t dispute that the flights do good things. But, he said, "these things are very unsafe."

"To me, it’s an accident waiting to happen because there is no room for error," Donatelli said. "The helipad is unsafe for the staff and the patients of the hospital. The fact there hasn’t been an accident doesn’t mean it’s safe."

He also said the hospital told neighbors the only flights into the hospital would be to bring patients. There was no mention of flights to pick up doctors and nurses to assist in picking up patients.

Lillis said the hospital did talk about the transport team in community meetings, and that the hospital is still under the number of patients it anticipated transporting by helicopter every year.

"I’ve seen critically ill patients with severe trauma where the added 10 to 12 minutes meant the difference between life and death," she said.

Karroach said she understands neighbors’ concerns. She knows the helicopters are loud because they land near her house when patients in the area need to be transported by air.

"I look at Mercy Flight a little differently now," she said. "I can be inconvenienced with a little bit of extra noise if it means somebody can get the health care as quick as needed."

e-mail: jbonfatti@buffnews.com

Originally published by NEWS STAFF REPORTER.

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