What did Dr. Rose Fuchs physically endure during the nearly 90-minute prolapsed cord intervention?
Dr. Rose Fuchs, who has scoliosis, maintained an agonizing kneeling and crouching position with her hand inserted up to her forearm inside the patient for approximately 90 minutes — through a bumpy ambulance ride on back roads and all the way into the operating room. Her legs fell asleep, her hand went intermittently numb, and she described the position as physically excruciating. She worried each time she lost sensation that she might inadvertently be pinching the cord she was working so hard to protect.
The ordeal did not end in the ambulance. Once inside the operating room, iodine was poured directly over Fuchs's arm where it entered the patient's body. Surgical tools were placed on her back to keep them sterile and within reach. Her cheek rested on Katie Gowell's thigh, her head tucked into an air pocket beneath the surgical drape. She remained in that position, motionless and braced, while Dr. Monica Shearheart performed the emergency C-section around her.
The full story of this intervention — including the cascade of rural healthcare decisions that made it necessary — is told in episode 894 of This American Life, "I Couldn't Help but Notice." You can listen to the episode on Listenly and follow every detail as Ira Glass reconstructs the night minute by minute.
"Nobody in the military seemed to care how everyday citizens were experiencing all this."
— Episode 894: "I Couldn't Help but Notice", This American LifeSee also
Dr. Monica Shearheart, an OB-GYN who was on call at Houlton and sleeping at the nearby Ivy's Motor Lodge, was woken by a phone call and came to perform the emergency C-section that delivered Katie Gowell's baby.
When 911 was called, the dispatcher at Penobscot County Dispatch Center gave instructions directly contradicting what Dr. Fuchs was doing — telling the family not to prevent the birth and not to push the cord back — creating dangerous confusion in the middle of the emergency.
Dr. Fuchs first gently replaced the cord inside the vagina to keep it warm, then climbed onto the bed between Katie's legs and inserted her hand up to her forearm to manually hold the baby's head off the cord — a position she maintained for nearly 90 minutes.