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Air Force medical team saves infant's life

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Kevin Iinuma
  • 59th Medical Wing Public Affairs
LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  A specialized medical team of Air Force personnel from the 59th Medical Wing rushed to Okinawa, Japan on March 30 to save the life of a critically ill infant.

A 6-week-old baby boy, Caleb, was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit at Camp Lester Hospital in Okinawa for cardiac failure. The infant required respiratory and cardiac support and further care by a cardiac specialist but was too unstable for a regular transport.

By placing the infant on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), he was stabilized and transferred from Okinawa to Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, California aboard a C-17 Globemaster III for advanced medical care.

ECMO is a machine that provides cardiac and respiratory support to patients whose heart and lungs are so severely diseased or damaged that they can no longer serve their function. The ECMO cart carries the patient on top with all the equipment on the bottom of the cart, such as the artificial lung, ventilator, oxygen, air, batteries, etc. The cart weighs about 800 pounds.

"Placing the child on ECMO allowed us to move Caleb safely to a specialized center that has all of these capabilities," said Lt. Col. (Dr.) Susan Dotzler, 59th MDW ECMO director.

Dr. Dotzler led the 15-member medical team on the 13-hour flight across the Pacific. "It is important to take a team of this size for long missions such as this. This allows for shift changes to take care of the patient. Once the patient is on ECMO, two nurses, a respiratory therapist and at least one physician are required to be at the patient's bedside during the transport." she said.

"These types of missions give confidence to military personnel and family members serving domestically or abroad," said Dotzler. "Furthermore, our ability to accomplish these missions helps to maintain the highest standard of care possible, " she added.

The Air Force ECMO mission has been available since 1985. The use of ECMO has greatly improved patient survivability, and the Air Force has played an integral role in the development of safe and effective ECMO transports.