When good friends and NICU nurses Mimi Ho, Lani Bamfield and Amanda Beeding got on a plane for a much anticipated vacation to Hawaii after a rough year of COVID-19 at North Kansas City Hospital, they were excited about the fun they would have on the island paradise.
Mimi Ho in the Oahu hospital with Lavi Mounga and her newborn baby, Raymond.
”COVID-19 has been so hard on every nurse I know, and the burnout is very real to a lot of us,” Ho said. “This specific trip was my birthday trip for the year, but it was also our opportunity to get away for a week and relax.”
But about half way through the flight, their relaxing, vacation state of mind changed abruptly when they heard a woman on the plane calling for help. The woman’s sister-in-law, Lavinia “Lavi” Mounga was delivering a baby. A shock not only for the passengers, but for Lavi, who didn’t know she was pregnant.”We had a layover in Salt Lake City, Utah. We were about half way to Hawaii from Utah when we heard Lavi’s sister-in-law yelling for help,” Ho said. “We had about three to four hours left of our flight when we realized Lavi was delivering her baby. She poked her arms out of the lavatory and her sister-in-law actually found her first.”
Ho had worked as an NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) nurse at North Kansas City Hospital for about two years and had been an NICU nurse for about three and a half years, so she and her fellow nurses, Bamfield and Beeding were ready to jump into action.
A family medicine doctor on the flight, Dr. Dale Glenn, who was heading back to his home in Hawaii, also went to help.
”When we heard that someone needed medical help, we thought it was most likely an adult with an adult problem,” Ho said. “We have all been in the NICU world for a while, so we didn’t know how much help we would be to this person at the time. Lani walked back there first, and I was right behind her. We realized Lavi was holding her baby in her arms in shock. The hospital thinks (the newborn) Raymond was about 29 weeks when he was born.”
The nurses knew the mother wouldn’t have made it to Hawaii before giving birth.
“The baby was ready to come out, and that is exactly what he did,” Ho said. “Sometimes, you can’t stop a baby from arriving early.”
Mounga gave birth to the baby, who she named Raymond, in the lavatory and the nurses and doctor moved the baby to the floor nearby for more space to work on getting him stable. It was an instant delivery and the baby weighed around three pounds.
”Luckily, Amanda, Lani and I all have experience transitioning babies during labor and delivery from our hospital (some hospitals do not require all of their NICU nurses to attend deliveries),” Ho said. “Amanda stayed with mom and helped deliver her placenta after we cut the cord. She checked her vitals and made sure she wasn’t bleeding too much. Mom did great, and she felt fine after the delivery. Lani and I took baby Raymond to the floor where we met Dr. Glenn and Lindsey (the PA) to get the baby stabilized. We used anything and everything we could find to help him stabilize. We were able to find some oxygen on the plane to help Raymond’s skin color turn pink. We also used a lot of different items to keep him warm (very important in the premature infant world). We cut slits in clean socks and used that for a hat. We found a NoseFrida (baby nasal aspirator) from a mom on the plane, and I manually suctioned Raymond’s mouth, so we could clear his airway. We found a lot of innovative items to use while we were on the plane!”
The nurses noticed that everyone on the flight was concerned about the tiny baby who was just delivered and needed extra support to stay warm and breathe.
“I know my friends and I were holding our breath the entire time we were working on mom and baby, Ho said. “I couldn’t imagine it being any different for the other passengers and flight crew. I remember looking up for a second to catch my breath and could see everyone’s eyes on us.”
Since the plane was over the ocean at that point, an emergency landing was not an option. They were about three and a half to four hours from their destination, but the flight crew got them there as fast as they could. They were too far from California to turn around and the fastest time the flight crew could get them to Hawaii turned out to be three hours.
Since Mounga didn’t know she was pregnant, Ho said she was in complete shock the entire flight after the baby arrived.
”Fortunately, the hospital in Oahu knew we were coming, so we did have an ambulance waiting for us to take Lavi and Raymond to the hospital when we landed,” Ho said. “The baby was right under three pounds when he was weighed at the hospital. Mom and baby are doing great. They are back in Utah, and he is getting so big. We try to keep up with mom and baby, frequently.”
Overall, the entire experience went smoothly. The flight crew had an emergency bag that the nurses went through to find items they could use.
The crew brought warmed water bottles to help keep the baby warm. Plastic trash bags were used to place around the baby, and blankets from passengers were used to wrap the baby.
”We did a lot of improvising,” Ho said. “We used a shoestring to tie off the umbilical cord and sewing scissors to cut the cord. We used an apple watch to verify what we were hearing with a stethoscope (the plane was loud and it was an adult stethoscope, so it was hard to hear the heart beat of Raymond). Dr. Glenn had to set up the oxygen tank with the mask we had available to give Raymond some oxygen. It is crazy to think about the amount of things we were able to improvise while in that situation.”
After they landed, Ho, Bamfield and Beeding visited the new mom and her baby at the hospital.
“She was very thankful for everything we did,” Ho said
While the most challenging part of the experience was not having the equipment and the supplies they needed, luckily, baby Raymond and his mom, Lavi were incredibly strong.
“The most rewarding part was meeting Lavi and helping a premature baby live,” Ho said. “We were able to put our skills and knowledge to the test, and we were very happy with the outcome. We keep up on Lavi’s and Raymond’s lives, and that might be the best part. We plan on meeting them for Raymond’s first birthday in April to celebrate him. After the flight landed and the ambulance took mom and baby to the hospital, Ho was on Cloud 9.
“I knew we did everything we could to keep mom and baby safe. We are all still amazed by the coincidence. I don’t know what the odds are of having that many specialized medical professionals on a fight with you while you have a premature baby, but I’m guessing it is not very high. I was grateful for my friends/coworkers. We have worked together a lot and knew how each of us worked as nurses. Everything seemed to flow the way it should, and we were all in sync about what each of us needed to do. At the end of the day I was most grateful that mom and baby were stable on their way to the hospital where they could get medical attention with the equipment and supplies they needed.”
Ho is currently a traveling NICU nurse and works at a new hospital about every 13 weeks to help with staffing needs at different hospitals around the U.S. She will always remember her trip to Hawaii, which turned out to be an “absolute blast.”
“It was not the start of the vacation we expected, but we are grateful every day that we were placed in that situation,” Ho said. “It will be a story I will never forget!”