Hurricane Laura: Nurses stay behind to care for babies

LAKE CHARLES, La. — Nurses at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital weathered Hurricane Laura and stayed on the job to care for the youngest patients.

The staff of the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit kept those within their care safe when the Category 4 storm hit, CNN reported.

Lake Charles, Louisiana, was battered by the storm as winds hit 120 to 135 mph for an hour.

The team that watched over the 19 babies included 14 nurses, two neonatal nurse practitioners and three respiratory therapists.

They slept at the hospital as two teams took care of the babies, some weighing only 1 or 2 pounds, and who had been born as early as 23 weeks.

Four of the babies were on ventilators as hospital generators supplied electricity to the building, CNN reported.

The babies had been transferred from the Lake Charles Memorial Hospital for Woman to the main hospital across town hours before the storm hit after flooding threatened the structure. Patients at the women’s hospital are kept on one floor. The other location has 10 floors.

In two hours, all 19 babies and the medical equipment, such as incubators and ventilators, had been transferred, CNN reported.

The babies are being transferred to other hospitals in the state because the water service in Lake Charles was damaged in the town, CNN reported.

Cox Media Group