Saving Jackson – Rallying Around Patient When Delivery Takes a Frightening Turn
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After their youngest child, Jackson, was born, Tyler and Stacy Thiede received a congratulatory card in the mail from the hospital staff who helped with the delivery. That may be common practice these days, but Tyler and Stacy say the card they received from staff at Mayo Clinic Health System — Red Cedar in Menomonie was anything but ordinary. "Several of his nurses signed the card and wrote us a personal note to let us know that they'd been praying for him," Tyler says. "That meant a lot to us," he says, given the way Jackson came into this world.
"Everything was going smoothly while my wife was in labor," Tyler tells us. Then things took a frightening turn. "Our nurse (Katie Bergmann) noticed Jackson's heart rate was dropping, so she quickly got Dr. (Christopher) Ott in there," he says.
Dr. Ott diagnosed an umbilical cord prolapse and lifted the baby’s head off the umbilical cord. Dr. Ott kept the newborn's head up and off of his umbilical cord as he, nurse Katie Bergmann, and the other "10 to 15 people who had come into the room," according to Tyler, rushed Stacy to the operating room for an emergency C-section.
"He came out not breathing," Tyler says of Jackson. So a team including Nathan Rich, M.D., Robyn Endrud, M.D., Bergmann, nurse Melissa Dorn, and nursing assistant Syren Nelson, worked on resuscitating Jackson while a team led by Dr. Ott finished with Stacy’s surgery.
"They resuscitated him for 40 minutes," Tyler says. "They never gave up." The team's persistence eventually paid off, and Jackson began breathing again.
"After Drs. Ott, Rich and Endrud stabilized Jackson in the OR, he was transferred to Children's Hospital in Minneapolis," Tyler says. "The neurologist there said that we can specifically thank Dr. Ott for saving Jackson's life, because if he hadn't held his head up off of his cord when he did, he would have been deprived of oxygen."
Instead, recent MRI results show that outside of "a few minor issues," Jackson is essentially no worse for wear. And that's an outcome that can be traced back directly to a care team at Mayo that Tyler says could not have been more personally invested in the health and well-being of his son.
Stacy and Jackson's primary nurse, Katie Bergmann, Tyler says, cared for Jackson like he was her own. "Katie told us that she was in tears after she found out he was going to be okay," he says.
On Dec. 30, the Thiedes posted a heartfelt thank-you on Mayo Clinic's Facebook page, along with a photo of the card they received. "We are spoiled by our health care team at Red Cedar Mayo in Menomonie," Tyler wrote. "Thank you to Dr. Ott, the birthing center staff, Dr. Endrud, and the other team members who saved our son's life and continue to treat us like family ... This is how health care should be."
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