Inside the harrowing 48-hour rush to evacuate NICU babies after Hurricane Ian.
One obstacle was that some roads and helicopter landing areas were unusable due to the storm. A second obstacle was that patients as small and critical as NICU babies are considered "complex transports," explained Dr. Marcos Mestre, vice president and chief medical officer of Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.
Early Thursday, hospital officials said they got the green light that the roads and helicopter landing pads were safe. Baptist Health South Florida, a hospital in Coral Gables, for example, accepted five NICU patients, a spokeswoman told ABC News. Morales Uparela learned on Thursday that her daughter would be evacuated to Nicklaus Children's Hospital, but had no way to get there herself as she was told the ambulance would not have space.
"There was a lot of debris in the highway," she said. "They had to go carefully with lots of debris and trees down." She said she was woken up by a phone call early Friday morning from the hospital, letting her know the twins would be evacuated but they weren't yet sure to where or whether they would stay together.Henning said she and her husband made the nearly two-hour drive to Hollywood on Friday, and were able to reunite with their sons."There were lots of tears," she said.
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