Dawn, who works as Intermountain Homecare & Hospice operations director, noticed a young mom with a 10-month-old baby who was fussing and upset. The mom appeared to be overwhelmed and had come in with an injury that required her to be in a wheelchair. Her baby was crying while in a car seat next to her, and the mom wasn’t able to pick up the baby and calm it down.
“Initially my mom tried to help this young woman,” says Dawn. “She went looking for a spoon to feed the baby, but couldn’t find one. Then she was going to mix some formula in water since the mom didn’t have any bottled water, but the drinking fountain wasn’t in service due to COVID-19. Normally I think this would’ve been easier to solve, but it’s different circumstances right now.”
Dawn says with the fussy baby and the waiting room growing busier, everyone was on edge. “The mom was on the phone trying to find someone to come and get the baby, but she wasn’t having any luck. She was pretty distraught.”
Maggie Flannery
That’s when Dawn saw Maggie Flannery, a critical care tech, come over to talk with the woman. Maggie was redeployed at McKay-Dee at the time, but she works with Imaging Recovery at LDS Hospital and Intermountain Medical Center.
“The ED was busy and I noticed this mom was stressed out and unable to attend to her baby,” Maggie says. “I decided to take a second and ask her if there was anything I could do to help. I wouldn’t normally do this, but she was going to be waiting for a while, and I knew if I could calm the baby down it would help everyone stay calm.”
Maggie quickly made a bottle and reassured the mom that everything was going to be okay. “I figured it was the least I could do,” she says. “I think the mom was grateful. She was just trying to manage herself at that point. I sat by her for a few minutes and empathized and helped her as much as I could.”
“From my perspective as a patient in the waiting room, I felt like Maggie really helped this baby to calm down, and it affected everyone in the waiting room to feel a little calmer,” says Dawn. “It was such a little thing, but I felt like she saved the day for this mom and baby.”