Checkup Newsroom

Baby treated for rare condition heads home in time for holidays

Fri, 22 Dec 2017 10:32:06 -0600

WFAA - During the holiday season, Cook Children's Medical Center takes decorating to new heights, from twinkling lights and festive ornaments to a magnificent tree. They make it so special, knowing that for many families, there is where they'll spend their holiday.

"I would hear that song 'I'll be home for Christmas' in my head, and I'm like, 'I'm not going to be home,'" said mother, Carol Vallecalle.

It was a tough notion for Vallecalle to accept, but not as tough, she says, as what her 6-week-old daughter Ella has been through.

See the full story here.

Huge hurricane rips into Lone Star state: Hospitals evacuate most at-risk

Thu, 31 Aug 2017 11:01:08 -0500

Boston Herald - Urgent preparations for Hurricane Harvey’s wrath touched some of Texas’ tiniest residents yesterday, when 10 neonatal intensive care patients at Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi were airlifted 350 miles away from the catastrophic storm’s path.

A phone call at 11:30 a.m. Thursday from Driscoll’s hospital chief to the head of Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth kicked off a frantic, 17-hour race to get the smallest and sickest patients to safety before the massive, Category 4 hurricane slammed into the Lone Star State, Cook Children’s Transport Director Debbie Boudreaux told the Herald yesterday.

Read the full story here.

A Nurse on Rescuing Critically Ill Babies From Hurricane Harvey

Thu, 31 Aug 2017 10:50:27 -0500

New York Magazine - Around lunchtime on Thursday, the team at Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth got the call they’d been preparing for ever since Hurricane Harvey’s massive scale had been announced. A hospital in Corpus Christi needed their help transporting ten critically ill newborns out of the path of the storm.

Debbie Boudreaux, director of the transportation team and a neonatal nurse at Cook Children’s, sprang into action, scrambling to get planes to transport the infants 400 miles north to Fort Worth. (With one exception, their parents would have to drive separately.)

Read the entire story here.

'It's A Miracle': Some Of Harvey's First Evacuees Were Newborns, Flown To Fort Worth

Thu, 31 Aug 2017 10:44:04 -0500

KERA - Nereyda Rangel sang to her newborn daughter at Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi. The building sits only a few blocks from Corpus Christi Bay, which spills into the Texas Gulf Coast. As Hurricane Harvey brewed in the Gulf, Shaddai Jireh Leija fought for her life. Soon, she and other newborns would need more than just medical care. They would need help getting out of there.

Read how Cook Children's Teddy Bear Transport Team answered the call for help and moved the babies out of harm's way.

Stretching their wings

Wed, 02 Apr 2014 16:30:46 -0500

When you care for the most critical patients imaginable, every second counts for the Cook Children’s Teddy Bear Transport team.

That’s why the addition of a new Cessna Citation Encore + jet will make the team, already one of the largest transport programs in the nation, even better.

The new aircraft is special, providing its crew shorter travel times, a greater reach and more efficiently placed equipment to get critical need patients to Cook Children’s faster.

The new jet, made possible by a generous gift from Clarabele "Pit" Dodson, also provides capacity for two parents to be transported with the patient, if needed. The current plane only has room for one.

And the new jet can get to these patients faster than ever before. Transport will shave an entire hour off round trip when traveling to Odessa. The flight will take 45 minutes each way.

Plus, this new plane can travel nearly 1,400 miles farther in a day than the previous plane because it doesn’t have to refuel as often. Without the delay to get fuel, Transport will not be as restricted due to pilot duty time either (they have a maximum number of flying hours per day).

With nearly 2,500 transports each year, Cook Children’s Teddy Bear Transport is plenty busy and will make full use of its fleet of five ambulances, one fixed-wing airplane, a jet and one helicopter.

But the Teddy Bear Transport is about more than just getting to the patients. It’s the care that takes place once the team arrives that makes them really stand out. Currently, the transport team includes 54 pediatric nurses, respiratory therapists, paramedics and communications specialists with more than 400 combined years of experience.

“It’s not just the jet that can get to these kids faster. It’s Cook Children’s that can get to these kids faster,” Deborah Boudreaux, director of Transport said. “We are bringing the expertise of our care to our patients as soon as we walk through that door. I can now relay that information to the physician sooner and we can begin care at that moment.”