07/15/2025
I dont know who needs to read this message but here goes —
Several years ago, this young lady who had an unremarkable prenatal care, presented in active labor and had an uncomplicated vaginal delivery of a healthy baby boy. Several hours later, she suffered a very surprising and sudden complete cardiovascular collapse and was coded close to 30 minutes without any sign of life. She was completely unresponsive that we were very close to calling off the emergency resuscitation. In the midst of helping to care for her, I was at the same time with such a heavy heart had so many thoughts going through my mind one of which was dealing with the reality that I am going to have to tell her husband after having had one of the most enjoyable moment in his life after the birth of his son… that his wife has passed away. I remember just hoping and praying for a miracle. And literally within the next minute out of nowhere , i thought of a condition that many OBGYN’s never encounter in their entire career 10x over … a liver rupture arising from severe preeclampsia — so rare that it only occurs in 1 out of 40k deliveries to 1 out of 250k deliveries. I requested for mechanical cardiac chest compressions to temporarily stop to perform an ultrasound that is not part of a normal cardiac resuscitation protocol — and discovered that she was hemorrhaging significantly intra abdominally. We initiated massive blood transfusions and within minutes, her eyes opened and i immediately called Erlanger for airtransfer and a general surgeon colleague and myself rushed her to emergency surgery to stop her bleeding where we did confirm a ruptured liver.
She survived this near tragic event with complete recovery and we just had recently delivered her second baby a few months ago without complication. I never had the opportunity to tell her exactly what had happened to her after her Erlanger hospitalization until recently and when i did , she was overcome with emotions and hugged and thanked me because she never knew she was this close to death. What happened that day is without a doubt DIVINE intervention and she wanted me to tell her miraculous story of survival to glorify HIS holy name. This is a reminder to me the immense responsibility and trust that patients put on me but also is a testament to the power of prayer, the resilience of the human spirit and in the most challenging times — he is right there with you every step of the way !!
