The amazing story of how teamwork saved a mum and baby

MEG Carroll and her son Spencer owe their lives to the teamwork of quick-thinking staff at Heathcote Health.

When she arrived at urgent care at 2.20am in November 2021 with gastric symptoms, it was almost immediately apparent that there was much more going on than just an upset stomach.

Thirty-three weeks pregnant at the time Ms Carroll said that until that point her pregnancy had been relatively normal.

“Although I had awful morning sickness in the first trimester, it resolved itself and everything was fine,” she said. “He was a much-wanted baby.”

On Monday, 8 November, she was at work and was preparing to start maternity leave.

At around 4pm she felt something was not quite right and called the hospital where she was due to give birth to say she thought she was experiencing early signs of labour.

“But they said not to worry about it,” she said. “So I went about my day and that evening at about nine o’clock I was sitting in the nursery labelling little boxes and I just couldn’t be bothered, which is very unlike me,” she said.

She began to feel unwell and mild nausea swiftly became a severe gastric upset, and by midnight she called the birthing hospital again.

“They told me to take a couple of Panadol and go to bed,” she said.

An hour and a half later she woke her husband Dan and asked him to take her to Heathcote Health.

Nurse Vishy Sagar was on night shift at the time.

“Within five minutes I realised Meg’s presentation was way more than a gastro and I contacted our on-call doctor, Safaa Essa,” he said.

“He gave me initial management orders and reassured me that he would be at the hospital in five minutes.”

Ms Carroll said Dr Essa rang Bendigo Health after assessing her.

“He came back into the room and said, ‘I’ve called an ambulance, lights and sirens, you’re going to Bendigo,’ and I thought he was joking,” she said.

“I still thought everything was fine and I didn’t think that it was going to escalate like it did, I don’t think anyone did.”

Dr Essa then called local midwife Elizabeth Murphy and asked her to come to the hospital.

They were joined by the registered nurse on night duty in the aged care facility, Jen Stewart, who had midwifery experience.

“They just pooled their resources, it was pretty amazing,” Ms Carroll said.

At this point her waters broke and her labour was very rapid; Ms Carroll said baby Spencer literally fell onto the bed.

“It was the quickest delivery you could possibly imagine,” she said. “Very shortly after that, around 3.20am, the paramedics arrived.”

Ms Carroll’s parents were also at the hospital by this stage, and as the situation took a sudden downturn everyone pulled together to help out.

Mr Sagar said Spencer had become sluggish, his temperature started to drop and he had low oxygen.

“We had to take the baby away from Meg and start immediate resuscitation,” he said.

“It was a teamwork effort between our hospital team, paramedics and the doctors from Melbourne on the phone giving us instructions.”

While this was happening Ms Carroll began to haemorrhage and her blood pressure started to drop.

She was flown to Bendigo Health for emergency surgery while the Heathcote team continued their battle to save Spencer.

“We were trying to warm the baby with our resources,” Mr Sagar said. “We had to use hot packs warmed up in the microwave and covered in pillowcases.

“I still remember very clearly that I was throwing the hot packs from one end of urgent care to Meg’s father so that he could give them to the paramedics, and he was returning the old ones.

“My cricket skills came in handy there.”

When a paediatric infant perinatal emergency retrieval team arrived they finally managed to stabilise Spencer.

He was then taken to the Joan Kirner Women and Children’s Hospital in Sunshine and Ms Carroll was transferred there shortly afterwards.

Ms Carroll said she was touched that people were willing come and help her and Spencer at Heathcote Health in the middle of the night.

“That’s just amazing,” she said. “It’s country town heart right there.

“Everyone just made incredible decisions and at the end of the day they were on top of it, and we have a little boy because of that.”

Midwife Elizabeth Murphy said it had been a great privilege to be able to help.

“To me, to be the village midwife in that instance was lovely,” she said.