Local Helps Save a Baby Born in a Travel Center Restroom
To a lot of us, a day can seem like any other day but all it takes is one simple moment to change a day and in turn, one day can change a life, and that one life may change the world.
For Gayle Plackemeier she found just that, one day can change everything.
On Sunday, Jan. 23 Plackemeier, who lives in Giddings, was driving to Chandler, Texas. She had an appointment with the Chandler Memorial Funeral Home to finish taking care of arrangements for her father, who had just passed away.
She decided to stop off at the Pilot Travel Center in Buffalo, Texas to fill up with gas and use the restroom. She had stopped there multiple times as it was on the way to where her family was from, but unbeknownst to her, she would also help save a life that day.
Here is Plackemeier’s retelling of that eventful day.
“I get into the bathroom and I hear this young lady crying and my first thought was that she was going through a breakup. But then I hear someone loudly say, ‘Well open the door, open the door’ and then the young lady in the stall hysterically says, ‘I can’t. I don’t know what’s happening to me.’
“By then I’m washing my hands and I think it was divine intervention because something told me not to leave the bathroom.
“I saw an employee unlocking the bathroom door and the other young lady (who is the young lady’s sister) was on the phone saying, ‘We don’t know, we don’t know.’ I said ‘Excuse me, I don’t mean to interfere with your business but it appears there may be a medical emergency and I am a labor and delivery nurse and could your sister be pregnant? She might be miscarrying.’ Her sister says, ‘Well no, she doesn’t know but she thinks she may have just had a baby.’
I popped my head into the stall and told the young lady who I was and she kept crying and saying, ‘I didn’t know, I didn’t know.’ I asked her if she could stand up and she said yes and as she stood up I could see there was a baby in the toilet and that was when my medical instincts kicked in. I started giving orders saying, ‘I need towels, gloves, and call 911.’
I looked at the baby and I didn’t think she was alive and then she moved her foot. I think with it being cold it had stunned her enough and thank God she was face-up. Once I saw the foot move I jumped into action, grabbed a towel, and scooped her up with one glove. I dried her off and turned her upside down and hit her in the back to clear her airway. I was talking to her and telling her to breathe for me, just breathe for me, and all of a sudden she just started crying. I then asked the young lady if she has any known medical issues and she said, ‘Well I have something with my spine and gastrointestinal issues’ and I told her not to worry because you just delivered those issues.
“When the EMTs arrived I took the baby to the ambulance and I gave it a little blow-by oxygen and kept simulating her and helped them clamp her umbilical cord. From there she was doing absolutely great.”
Plackemeier then talked to the new mom’s sister who said her sister kept saying she had to go to the bathroom and she didn’t think she was going to make it in time. Plackemeier said she almost didn’t. “I could tell the baby had been in the birth canal for a few miles and was early. I guessed she was born between 35 to 38 weeks and Palestine Regional Medical Center where they took her told me they determined her to be a 35-week baby and she weighed 5 lbs.”
The new mom who was discharged from the hospital two days later contacted Plackemeier to thank her and she has sent her pictures.
Plackemeier, who had been a labor and delivery nurse for over 20 years and is now retired, said it was a very surreal moment for her.
“After I left and got back on the road it really hit me what just happened and now I kinda have PTSD because when I stop to go somewhere to the bathroom I want to make sure everybody’s okay,” Plackemeier said jokingly.
“But I really do believe it was a miracle and God’s intervention that put me there at that time, at that place. I’m just so grateful I was there and to be of assistance to them. My concern and priority were to get the baby out and I just automatically kicked in and did what I could and I guess I was the good samaritan that day.”
Plackemeier may underestimate her importance that day but we must trust the timing of our lives because the universe always seems to deliver things at the right time.