- Two nurses at Logan Regional Hospital saved a newborn with who came to the ER with symptoms of supraventricular tachycardia.
- Soren, who was just 2 weeks old, had a heart rate of 260 beats per minute.
- Now 4 months old, Soren is stable on medication and doing well; he recently reunited with the nurses who saved him.
LOGAN — When Rachel Gold's newborn, Soren, was just 2 weeks old, she noticed something was off. He wasn't eating well, wasn't having enough wet diapers, and his lips were a little purple.
"That was a big red flag for me," she said. "By the time we got to the doctor, his breathing had been kind of labored."
Gold was told to immediately take Soren to the emergency room.
"That was terrifying. I was definitely worried that he might not survive," she said.
Nurses Missy Bradshaw and Wendy Rushton met Gold and baby Soren in the ER at Intermountain Health's Logan Regional Hospital.
"His heart was pumping at about 260 beats per minute," said Bradshaw, a registered nurse in newborn care.
Soren was diagnosed with a condition called supraventricular tachycardia — or SVT — which happens when the electrical system controlling the heart rhythm malfunctions.
"We probably see two or three cases a year here," said Rushton, a neonatal nurse practitioner. "Their heart starts to work harder and it's hard for them to pump blood and get good circulation to their extremities, then to all the tissues."
"We knew the urgency of getting him the correct care," Bradshaw said. "His little body was not perfusing very well because his heart was beating so fast that he couldn't keep up with it."
With their extensive training and support from other caregivers, including a pediatric hospitalist via telehealth, the nurses managed to stabilize Soren.
The pair has worked together for nearly two decades.
"We joke that this is not our first rodeo," Bradshaw said. "We've resuscitated, over the years, a lot of babies together, and so I think you just go to those skills that you know and that you've practiced."
Baby Soren spent a week in the neonatal ICU at Logan before being transferred to the pediatric cardiac care unit at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City.
Now, about 4 months old, he's doing well and is on medication for his condition.
"They have us listening to his heart with a stethoscope every time we change his diaper," Gold said. "If he goes into (SVT) again, they've taught us different maneuvers to try to get him out of it so that we don't have to go back to the ER."
Doctors told Gold many babies tend to grow out of SVT within a year.
Gold, Soren and the nurses recently reunited at the hospital.
"We don't often get to see the result of our hard work," Rushton said. "It was great to see him in person."
"It was great care that we received, and I really appreciated their expertise," Gold said. "They saved his life."
