A baby girl only 12 hours old was medically evacuated via a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter from a hospital in Cleveland, Texas, Friday due to floods blocking the roads.
The Coast Guard said it received the evacuation request at around 11:45 a.m. when the baby started having low oxygen levels while at Texas Emergency Hospital, which lacks a neonatal intensive care unit.
An ambulance couldn’t be used due to flooding in the Cleveland area. As a result, the baby, her unnamed mother and a paramedic were flown 45 miles south to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.
The baby is in stable condition, the Coast Guard said.
Parts of eastern Texas have been lashed with rainfall three to seven times greater than normal for weeks, and the deluge of a foot of rain late Thursday and early Friday in some areas swelled the floodwaters, CNN said.
As the rain continues through the weekend, high-water records set during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 could be broken.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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