Air ambulance a real life-saver

Mosgiel mother Nicole Bryant with baby Stevie-Jane. Photo by Gregor Richardson.
Mosgiel mother Nicole Bryant with baby Stevie-Jane. Photo by Gregor Richardson.
Stevie-Jane in an incubator. Photos supplied.
Stevie-Jane in an incubator. Photos supplied.
An ambulance performs a hospital-airport transfer; below, right, Stevie-Jane explores the carpet.
An ambulance performs a hospital-airport transfer; below, right, Stevie-Jane explores the carpet.

A Mosgiel mum went from the joy of a newborn baby to the anxiety of an emergency air ambulance flight to Auckland. Sean Flaherty reports.

Nicole Bryant has blocked out much of what happened after being told her new baby might not survive the night.

She remembers making it to Dunedin Hospital just on time.

She remembers the ''very, very quick'' birth.

She also remembers the confusion when she realised she could not hold her new daughter, Stevie-Jane.

It's for the following period - after she and partner Billy McEwan were told their new daughter might not survive the night - that her memory falters.

''I've blanked a lot of it out. It was just so surreal.''

Nine months later, the 28-year-old is enjoying having her 9-month-old ''miracle girl'' home - and hopefully free from complications.

But it was all very different in February, when Stevie-Jane was delivered fighting for breath because of meconium obstructing her airway.

''One of specialist doctors from NICU came down and started trying to clear her airways and then she was taken away in an incubator.''

The next day, the drama intensified with the news Stevie-Jane would have to be transferred by the Starship National Air Ambulance Service for specialist treatment at Starship Children's Hospital in Auckland.

Although Miss Bryant got to ride with her baby, the situation was frightening and confusing.

''I was thinking a lot of things. It just didn't make sense to me. It took about four hours and it was a very loud ride there.''

Once at Starship, Steve-Jane made progress, but the stress was not over for her parents.

''For quite a while, I thought: Where's the light at the end of the tunnel? When am I going to get her home? We got so close so many times and then she'd have a setback.''

It was more than a week after the birth that Miss Bryant, who has another daughter, Madison (8), finally had her little girl in her arms.

''I didn't get to hold her until she was nine days old ... and that wasn't really much of a hold,'' Miss Bryant said.

After two weeks at Starship, Stevie-Jane had stabilised and was transferred to Dunedin Hospital's NICU where she stayed another six weeks because of recurring problems with air around her lungs.

Apart from a couple of colds, she has been healthy since leaving hospital.

The scars from chest drains - her ''war wounds'' - will be a lasting reminder of her tough start to life.

Not that Miss Bryant thinks her daughter will worry too much about what she put her parents through.

''She probably won't care when she's old. She'll be like, `Whatever, Mum'.''

A total of 171 children from Southland and Otago were admitted to Starship in 2013, and on average the Starship National Air Ambulance Service retrieves 13 seriously ill or injured patients from these regions each year.

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