Doctor saved premature baby, who becomes a paramedica and saves his life 30 years later

[emilynghiem]

Doctor Saves Premature Baby s Life Who Becomes Paramedic and Saves His Life 30 Years Later LifeNews.com

Now HERE'S a cool story. A paramedic who helped save the life of a doctor, trapped in a burning car wreck,
finds out later it's the same doctor who worked nonstop to save his own life when he was a baby -- born premature with only a 50% chance of survival. What a case of what comes around goes around -- 30 years later!

 

[Pedro de San Patricio]

This is exactly why I continue to argue with liberals that preemies are human, people, and wrong to murder.

 

[longknife]

I loved this story when I first saw it.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Doctor Saves Premature Baby s Life Who Becomes Paramedic and Saves His Life 30 Years Later LifeNews.com

Now HERE'S a cool story. A paramedic who helped save the life of a doctor, trapped in a burning car wreck,
finds out later it's the same doctor who worked nonstop to save his own life when he was a baby -- born premature with only a 50% chance of survival. What a case of what comes around goes around -- 30 years later!

That's awesome. That's a lead story one would think.

 

[waltky]

Now that's dedication...

How one man saved a generation of premature babies
Sun, 22 May 2016 - The man who saved premature babies doctors left to die

For years doctors in the US made little attempt to save the lives of premature babies, but there was one place distressed parents could turn for help - a sideshow on Coney Island. Here one man saved thousands of lives, writes Claire Prentice, and eventually changed the course of American medical science. In the early years of the 20th Century, visitors to Coney Island could see some extraordinary attractions. A tribe transported from the Philippines, "midget villages", a re-enactment of the Boer War by 1,000 soldiers including veterans from both sides, and death-defying roller coaster rides. But for 40 years, from 1903 to 1943, America's premier amusement park was also home to a genuine life-and-death struggle, played out beside the surf.

Martin Couney's Infant Incubator facility was one of Coney Island's most popular exhibits. "All the World Loves a Baby" read a sign above the entrance. Inside, premature babies fought for their lives, tended by a team of dedicated medical staff. To see the babies, you paid 25 cents. A guard-rail prevented visitors getting too close to the tiny figures encased in incubators. Why were premature babies, who would now be cared for in a neonatal ward, displayed as entertainment? The man who ran the exhibit was Martin Couney, dubbed "the incubator doctor" - and although he practised in the sideshows, his operation was cutting-edge. Couney employed a team of nurses and wet nurses who lived onsite, along with two local physicians.

In America, many doctors at the time held the view that premature babies were genetically inferior "weaklings" whose fate was a matter for God. Without intervention, the vast majority of infants born prematurely were destined to die. Couney was an unlikely medical pioneer. He wasn't a professor at a great university or a surgeon at a teaching hospital. He was a German-Jewish immigrant, shunned by the medical establishment, and condemned by many as a self-publicist and charlatan. But to the parents of the children he saved, and to the millions of people who flocked to see his show, he was a miracle-worker. The incubators Couney used were the latest models, imported directly from Europe - France was then the world leader in premature infant care with the US lagging several decades behind.

Beth Allen and a picture of Martin Couney holding her as a baby​

Each incubator was more than 5ft (1.5m) tall, made of steel and glass, and stood on legs. A water boiler on the outside supplied hot water to a pipe running underneath a bed of fine mesh on which the baby slept, while a thermostat regulated the temperature. Another pipe carried fresh air from outside the building into the incubator, first passing through absorbent wool suspended in antiseptic or medicated water, then through dry wool, to filter out impurities. On top, a chimney-like device with a revolving fan blew the exhausted air upwards and out of the incubators. Caring for premature babies was expensive. In 1903, it cost about $15 a day ($405 or £277 today) to care for each baby in Couney's facility.

But Couney did not charge the parents a penny for their medical care - the public paid. They came in such numbers that Couney easily covered his operating costs, paid his staff a good wage and had enough left over to begin planning more exhibits. In time, these made Couney a wealthy man. Couney saw his job as not only to save the lives of the premature babies, but also to advocate on their behalf. He gave lectures reciting the names of famous men who had been born prematurely and gone on to achieve great things, such as Mark Twain, Napoleon, Victor Hugo, Charles Darwin, and Sir Isaac Newton. He maintained his facility for 40 years at Coney Island, and set up a similar one at Atlantic City in 1905, which he also ran until 1943. Over the years he took his show to other amusement parks, and to World's Fairs and Expositions across America.

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