PPMC Security Acted Fast When a Nurse Went Into Premature Labor
Bridget Quigley Gallagher and her husband, Chris, with their daughter, Emerson.
Bridget Quigley, BSN, was working on Cupp 3 East – Cardiology around 8:30 pm on May 19 when the nurse suddenly felt a pop and a gush of liquid. Pregnant with her first child, Quigley was only 28 weeks along. “I left the room and walked up to the nurses’ station, saw one of my coworkers, and said, ‘You need to help me, my water just broke,’” she said. When a pregnant person’s amniotic sac ruptures (water breaks) before 37 weeks of pregnancy, it’s known as preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM) and requires medical attention as quickly as possible.
Quigley contacted her husband, Chris, at their home in New Jersey and told him to meet her at Pennsylvania Hospital (PAH), where they’d planned to deliver in August. Meanwhile, her nursing colleagues worked on coordinating transportation and keeping her calm.
PPMC doesn’t offer maternity or pediatric care, so it was critical to get her to an appropriate facility. Amy Duda and Kevin Delussey, the nursing coordinators on duty that evening who came to Quigley’s aid, said PPMC’s Emergency Department would want to send her to HUP, which was closer than PAH. Thankfully, they received good news: Two members of PPMC’s Security team, Kadhafi Yallah and Christopher Kedanis, volunteered to drive her to PAH. At Quigley’s request, Duda accompanied them. “I can’t be the only nurse there when I’m the one having a baby,” she recalled saying.
The drive to PAH felt like an eternity to Quigley, who was crying and scared. “About 10 minutes into the ride, I started to get cramps. I told the security guards in the nicest way possible, ‘I need you to drive faster and stop stopping at all the traffic lights, because I need to get there.’” Her driver flagged down a police car, and the next thing Quigley knew, they had a police escort to the hospital. She was taken immediately to the Perinatal Evaluation and Treatment Unit (PETU).
Duda and the security guards waited with Quigley until she was placed in a room. Minutes later, her husband arrived. Quigley’s labor progressed quickly and she was rushed to Labor & Delivery, where at 10:30 pm, she delivered a baby girl weighing 2 lbs, 7 oz. The couple named her Emerson. Quigley said, “She came out screaming, so that was amazing, and I didn’t know she was a girl, so that was a surprise.” Incredibly, Emerson never required a breathing tube. Born 12 weeks premature, she remained in the hospital’s Intensive Care Nursery (ICN) for the next 80 days, allowing her time to grow under close medical supervision.
Quigley praised the nurses and doctors at PAH, not only for caring for her baby, but for the way they looked after the couple, too. She expressed appreciation for her colleagues at PPMC for rallying around her when she needed it most, and quickly getting her where she needed to be to safely deliver her baby. Quigley is also grateful to the security team who came to her rescue, and looks forward to thanking them in person. “I would be scared to volunteer to drive a pregnant woman, whose water just broke, from one hospital to another, but they didn’t even hesitate,” she said.