Save the Children’s Dr. Laurel Kietzman

In a small village in the mountains of northern Pakistan, Save the Children’s Dr. Laurel Kietzman was jarred awake at 3 am last week, seized by what she called “a feeling of urgency about a pregnant patient.”

A general practitioner currently working in a small tented hospital in Bana, located in Pakistan’s remote Allai Valley, Dr. Kietzman recalled, “I had admitted the pregnant woman two nights earlier—I don’t know why. There was nothing to indicate impending delivery, yet something about her troubled me.”

Braving the frigid mountain air, Dr. Kietzman left her sleeping bag to check on the young woman in a nearby tent and discovered her patient bleeding and in pain, and immediately knew that mother and child were in danger.

Only an emergency Caesarian section would save them. Bana, however, was not equipped for this surgery. The patient had to be evacuated to the Batagram field hospital, another tented facility coordinated by Save the Children.

Bana is located two hours from Batagram, down a road that barely clings to the mountain and which is often closed by landslides. Risky during daylight, the trip is even more treacherous at night.

Still, at 4 a.m. Dr. Kietzman found an ambulance and driver, started an IV drip and headed down the valley with her patient, hoping the woman would not deliver en route.

“Her condition would have been fatal if a Caesarian section were not performed promptly,” she said. “We had none of the usual medications to stop contractions, so I gave her an injection for pain hoping that she would relax and that the labor would be delayed somewhat.”

Using a satellite phone, the only means of communication in the area, Dr. Kietzman alerted Save the Children physicians at Batagram.

On arrival a gynecologist, surgeon, anesthesiologist and nurse were standing by—and shortly thereafter delivered a healthy baby boy.

Leaving mother and baby healthy and well, Dr. Kietzman headed out into the morning sun, back to Bana and to other patients in need.

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