Two minutes after he had made an incision, Crossman held Lizette’s uterus cupped in his hands. Selecting an area between the engorged veins, he quickly made an incision just large enough for the baby to fit through. Working his way through the thick muscular wall, he entered the body cavity of the uterus. Carefully scooping the baby out of the organ, he clamped the umbilical cord and cut it.
“I’m right behind you,” Armbrister said, with her arms outstretched and draped with a sterile towel.
Crossman set the baby into her waiting arms. She was profoundly blue and limp as a Raggedy Ann doll. She made no sounds, not even a whisper of a cry. With the help of her nurse practitioner, Armbrister positioned the baby on a warming bed and swiftly slid a breathing tube through her graying lips and down into her trachea to assist her breathing.
“Talk to me, somebody. How’s the baby doing?” Crossman inquired without lifting his eyes from the operating field.
“She’s alive,” Armbrister answered, using a plastic bulb to suction out the baby’s nostrils and mouth. The instant she was finished, she transferred the baby from the warming bed to an incubator. “We’re out of here,” she announced.
“Does she have a chance?” Crossman asked.
“Ask me in about twenty minutes. Right now things aren’t looking so good.”
During the entire time the C-section was in progress, two medical residents alternated performing CPR on Lizette. At the same moment Crossman finished stapling closed her incision, her heart suddenly stopped. Arrani and the others continued to work like madmen for the next twenty minutes to restore a heartbeat but with no success.
Finally, he looked away from the monitor. His eyes dropped and in a monotone drenched in defeat, he said, “We can stop the chest compressions. I’m calling it. Somebody note the time of death for the record please.”
By this time, the floor was littered with empty medication boxes, paper heart tracing strips and an endless assortment of used medical supplies. Allowing a full breath to flow out from his lungs, he leaned over and picked up a box. As far as he knew, Lizette Bordene was the first death from GNS in the country.
After a minute or so, he crumpled the box in his hand and tossed it into the trash. As much as he dreaded doing it, he walked over to the phone to call Lizette’s mother.