BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WKRG) — A 911 dispatcher hospitalized with COVID-19 at an Alabama hospital finally met her son 17 days after giving birth.
Nurses at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital arranged for Dakota Vest-Wright to hold her son for the first time last Friday, two days before Mother’s Day.
Vest-Wright was diagnosed with COVID-19 on April 9 and admitted to the emergency room at a Mobile, Alabama hospital five days later. She was critically ill and pregnant with her second child when she was transferred to UAB Hospital on April 19.
Vest-Wright gave birth at UAB’s Women and Infants Center on April 20, the same day she was put on extra corporeal membrane oxygenation, a technology using a portable heart and lung bypass machine. On May 6, she was finally taken off ECMO and nurses began planning the long-awaited meeting, which took place the next day.
Vest-Wright and her son, Bruce, continue to receive care at UAB Hospital. A GoFundMe page has been established to help the family.