“There were many consultants, ICU was ready and waiting to accept her and it shows how good we are in a crisis,” Dr Gan Lim said. “It’s very rare – we only have two to three minutes and if there had been a delay there could have been brain damage or death. “Jo is very lucky to be alive, she is one of the few good outcomes from AFE and I know a big reason for this is our team work and the fact our theatres and ICU are very well equipped.
#DOCTORS WHO SPECIALIZE IN AMNIOTIC FLUID EMBOLISM FULL#
“There’s not time to think what is going on, no mucking around I just knew she needed an airway and that was my job.ĭr Gan Lim said Jo needed full CPR to be revived and she was moved to ICU. I had a suspicion it might be an amniotic embolism as I’d seen one when I was a trainee doctor and had heard about one my colleague had at the old Base Hospital. “I knew I had to immediately intubate her, I said we have an emergency and I was just thinking we have to save her. “It started as a pretty straight forward procedure, though we are always aware there might be some complications, and suddenly here you are. “Everything was fine, we were all OK, her husband was there, the baby came out and everyone was happy,” he recalled. In his 30 years as an anaesthetist he has seen two women with an AFE and Jo is the only one to survive. Lincoln actually said ‘we’re going to make this a good one for Jo’.įor Dr Gan Lim this story is more than him having a good bedside manner – it’s about the teamwork he says undoubtedly saved Jo’s life. I was stressing out about feeling the caesar again like I did with my first baby. “From the moment I was in the waiting room for surgery he came over and made my husband fell like it was his day too – he made him feel comfortable as well as me. He listened to my fears and took them seriously and made me feel better,” she said. “He was very good and made sure I was fully numb before they started cutting. Jo says the kindness of staff at the Base will be with her for ever and one name she recalls readily is anaesthetist Dr Lincoln Gan Lim, who knew she was anxious about the epidural and whether she would feel the birth. The theatre team worked on her for nearly four minutes before establishing a cardiac rhythm again.ĭoctors have told Jo she’s lucky to have survived and that most cases are generally diagnosed on autopsy. Seconds after delivery fluid surrounding Adaline in the womb leaked into Jo’s blood stream, essentially causing an allergic reaction that sent her into cardiac and respiratory arrest. The obstetrician said we’ll do a caesarean now because it’s best to do them during the day when there’s a lot of staff around and by 1.30pm Adaline was born.”
“I had started bleeding and contracting and went to hospital around 10am. Little Adaline was born on 5 October 2016 by caesarean section after Jo started having contractions and bleeding due to placenta praevia, a condition where the placenta is close to the cervix making a vaginal delivery too dangerous to risk. “The staff had to quickly take him out of the theatre while they started CPR.” My eyes rolled back and the alarms sounded. “He turned around to answer me and tells me I said ‘my chest’. “Soon after she was born I said to my husband Mitchell ‘are you going to get some photos of her?’. Jo has little or no memory of the moment she almost died. It took almost four minutes of CPR to restore her heart rhythm and the mum of two remained in an induced coma for two days in Intensive Care before her condition became more stable.įortunately the anaesthetic, surgical and obstetric teams at the Base instantly suspected the rare and often fatal amniotic fluid embolism (AFE). Jo’s body plunged into cardiac and respiratory failure as her heart struggled to pump enough blood and the invading fluid caused life-threatening problems with blood clotting. Just moments after giving birth to a healthy baby girl some of the amniotic fluid that surrounded her baby entered her blood stream, triggering a catastrophic reaction. Six months ago Jo Tronc’s heart stopped on the operating table at Mackay Base Hospital.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health.
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