Baby Ethan was just 2.5 months old when his cold took a turn for the worse.
Thinking that his chest and breathing sounded not right, mum Krista took him to the Emergency Department in their home of Lethbridge. His oxygen levels were low and the team there admitted him straight away. They began treating him for bronchiolitis and put him oxygen and inhalers, but he wasn’t improving. In fact, the doctor took Krista aside and said that he was becoming hypoxic – meaning there wasn’t enough oxygen in this blood. She was worried that baby Ethan was working so hard to breath that his little heart would give out. She told Krista that she was very concerned her baby and that he needed medical experts who strictly specialize in pediatrics. The Transport Team from the Alberta Children’s Hospital was flying to Lethbridge by helicopter to come and get Ethan.
Learning this was the first time Krista felt frightened that their son’s life was in serious danger.
When the Transport Team arrived, they stepped in and determined that the first thing they needed to do was take over his breathing. They used special video intubation equipment to insert a breathing tube, and he was put onto a ventilator. Ethan was loaded into the helicopter and rushed back to the Alberta Children’s Hospital where he could benefit from the full complement of the PICU.
Following in their car, Krista, her husband Andrew and their other two children arrived at the hospital to find Ethan in his PICU room, sedated and resting comfortably. Krista says that as scary as it is seeing your child in a hospital, she felt an immediate peace of mind —the same confidence she’d had with the Transport Team. Ethan was diagnosed with RSV—a virus that causes infections in the lungs and respiratory tract. His case was textbook. It would get worse before it would get better, his nurses having to provide deep suctioning to remove the secretions from his airway. But on day five, he turned a corner. He was able to be extubated a day or two after that – and in fact, Ethan sort of decided he was done with his breathing tube when he coughed it out on his own! He did well on high flow oxygen and was soon well enough to be transferred out of the PICU and onto the baby unit – Unit 2, where he spent another four or five days.
While the medical team at the Lethbridge hospital was wonderful, they recognized that Ethan’s condition was worsening so quickly and that he needed the pediatric critical care specialists at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. Krista says it was such a relief when they arrived and worked so confidently on her son…even providing updates while they were in the air and after they landed at ACH. Ethan was helped by two life-saving pieces of equipment that were made possibly at previous Radiothons – video intubations blades and a transport ventilator.
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