By Nothing stops a doctor from taking care of his patients. Dr. George Alkhouri of California is being praised for his determination and commitment to healthcare after he raced to the hospital to help deliver a baby. The only problem was that Alkhouri had just been in a car accident. He was badly injured, but still made it to the hospital on one leg, where he performed the delivery. Give this guy a raise already.
A Daring Delivery
Alyssa Stanghellini, the mother-to-be, realized something was wrong with her pregnancy on July 2nd. She found out the baby’s heartbeat was dangerously low, and the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck.
“It was just a whirlwind,” Alyssa remembers thinking when she heard the news. “I was in a lot of pain, so I was just looking for relief and hoping everything would be okay.”
Her mom, Amanda Maxwell, added, “It’s just like a panicked situation. You just don’t know what’s going on.”
Alkhouri, the woman’s doctor, was monitoring Stanghellini’s condition from home and quickly realized that he had to go to the hospital to help deliver the baby as soon as possible.
As Stanghellini was being prepped for an emergency cesarean section, she remembers overhearing the doctor talking in the operating room. “I overheard the nurses say that the surgeon got into a car accident on his way over,” she said.
Police have confirmed that Alkhouri was hit by a drunk driver while he was on his way to the hospital.
“All the glass just shattered and came in my face and my hands,” Alkhouri remembers.
Right after the collision, Alkhouri says he was able to get out of his car and check on the other driver. The doctor used someone else’s phone to call 9-1-1. Once an officer arrived on the scene, Alkhouri borrowed his phone to call a charge nurse at the hospital and tell them that he was in an accident and was on his way to perform the emergency C-section.
“I told her I’m going to do my best to be there,” he explained to the nurse. “When the police officer heard us talking, he offered to release me and let me go.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the pain in my leg, or the blood on my face, or my hand. Just, all I’m thinking [is], ‘How am I going to get there and how I’m going to deliver this baby?’” he added.
Even though he was bloody and in pain, the doctor made his way to the hospital. He arrived just after 1 AM local time to perform the procedure.
“I was standing on only one leg when I was doing the surgery,” Alkhouri explained. He even had a nurse remove tiny fragments of glass from his face before operating.
The doctor says his injuries from the accident are still healing, but he’s glad he made the right choice. It’s times like these that remind him why he got into this profession in the first place.
“I’m so happy to see Alyssa and her baby healthy and together,” he told a local news outlet. “This gives me more push to do it again, honestly.”
As for Alyssa, she’s more than grateful to have a doctor like Alkhouri on her side. Her son, Bradley, is doing better than expected after a stressful delivery.
“I feel like God had his hand over the situation, so I’m just very grateful that Dr. Alkhouri was able to make it, even though he was injured,” Stanghellini said. “I don’t know if we would have Bradley here if he wasn’t able to make it.”
“It’s pretty remarkable,” she added. “He’s a remarkable human being that I just can’t express enough gratitude to.”
