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Wilford Hall team members provide care and assistance to evacuees

  • Published
  • By Dewey Mitchell
  • Wilford Hall Medical Center Public Affairs
The staff of Wilford Hall Medical Center here quickly stepped up to provide care and assistance to Gulf Coast residents and patients evacuating before Hurricane Rita struck the Texas and Louisiana coastline Sept. 24.

Among the first getting help were five infants in incubators, who were flown by civilian helicopter out of harm's way Sept. 22 from Memorial Hermann Baptist Hospital in Beaumont, Texas.

It was to be a day of firsts for one evacuee family. Alethea Jackson's first child, Samarey Jackson, was born at 12:48 p.m. and was transported 20 minutes later by helicopter to Wilford Hall Medical Center.

Several hours later, Ms. Jackson departed on an Air Force C-130 Hercules to Kelly Field at Lackland, and the new mother and her newborn daughter were reunited at Wilford Hall's Birthing Center that night. "It was also my first time to fly in an airplane," said Ms. Jackson from her post-partum room.

The Jackson's and two other infants have been released to their families, but a pair of twins remain in the care of the hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, while their mother recuperates as an outpatient in Dallas. They are expected to rejoin their mother next week in Houston.

Also around noon Sept. 22, a 15-member team of nurses and technicians departed in two ambulance buses for Victoria, Texas, where they met up with eight civilian ambulances from other cities for a joint mission to evacuate patients from the hospital there. The two Air Force teams transported litter and ambulatory patients to Texas hospitals in Floresville, Fredericksburg and San Antonio. The mission took more than 12 hours and covered more than 250 miles.

Meanwhile, four Critical Care Air Transport Teams were activated and sent to the Regional Airport at Port Arthur, Texas, where they would stand ready to transport critical patients to hospitals in four different states. A three-person CCATT team consists of a critical care physician, critical care nurse and a respiratory therapist.

Altogether, the teams safely transported 43 critical patients to hospitals in Dallas; Little Rock, Ark.; Lexington, Ky.; and Oklahoma City. The missions were flown on Sept. 22 and 23 as part of Air Force operations that transported about 23,000 evacuees, including 1,950 patients from the Port Arthur airport.

Other Wilford Hall staff members screened the 990 evacuees who processed in at Arnold Hall at Lackland. Of those, 32 required medical assistance. Nine more were treated for illness at the hospital dispensary.