KINGSLAND, Ga. — The last time Katie Stevens saw the first responders from Kingsland Station Four, she was 33 weeks pregnant with baby Elaina, unsure if she would get to hold her daughter in her arms.
“After being told all day everything was fine I thought, well maybe I am crazy. I thought maybe I just have a low pain tolerance, maybe this is just bothering me more than it would than somebody else,” Stevens said.
Before she was in the back of the Camden County Fire Rescue ambulance, Stevens admitted herself to the hospital because of the unbearable pain in her stomach. She was later sent home.
“They said she was not in labor, but when we got to her, she was in even more pain than she was before,” explained Captain Travis Swann with Camden County Fire Rescue
Paramedics rushed Stevens over state lines to UF Health, where she would get treatment for her high-risk pregnancy.
“Once they got there and everything started happening so rapidly, and the doctor said 'oh my gosh,' then it clicked in how serious it was,” said Stevens.
She continued: "I had been bleeding into my abdomen for who knows how long. They took a very big blood clot out of me and then I had three blood transfusions."
Stevens is now saying thank you for the call that not only saved her life, but her baby’s.
“We make a lot of life-saving decisions every day, however, it's very few cases that we get to find out what actually happened and what decisions were the right decisions,” Captain Swann said. “This is one of the lucky cases, not only did everything turn out great and it's something we feel good about for impacting the family for generations to come, but something we're actually able to find out what happened."
Baby Elaina was born prematurely and is now living at home, happy and healthy thanks to Camden County Fire Rescue.