DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Six-day-old Joshua Williams was rushed aboard a C-17 Globemaster transport Thursday night and flown to the mainland for treatment.

Parents of ailing
baby get advice

Another couple had an
infant with the same ailment

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By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

Army Sgt. J.J. Williams and his wife, Gizette, received some first-hand advice from another Hawaii couple before their baby was flown to Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio to try to save his life.

They talked to Army Sgt. Keith Lehman and his wife, Dawn, Wednesday about their experience at the Texas medical facility with their baby, Mitchell.

In both cases, the babies suffered from meconium aspiration syndrome. Meconium is an abrasive substance created by the baby's own waste. The syndrome occurs when meconium in the amniotic fluid at birth damages the baby's lungs.

The Lehmans' son was born June 21 at Tripler Army Medical Center and flown three days later to San Antonio by Wilford Hall's special neonatal Critical Care Air Transport Team.

The team returned Thursday to pick up the Williams' son, Joshua, born Aug. 16 at Tripler. The baby was reported in critical but stable condition at Wilford Hall yesterday.

The Lehmans' baby had been under care at Tripler since returning from Texas Aug. 10.

In a telephone interview yesterday after arriving in San Antonio, Williams said he and his wife talked to the Lehmans Wednesday "to find out as much as we could."

The Williamses were preparing to leave for Texas and the Lehmans were getting ready to take their son home from Tripler.

When Mitchell Lehman was born, Williams said, "They were given basically the same diagnosis as ours (for their baby) and very little chance of surviving."

But Williams, a nuclear medicine technician at Tripler, said Mitchell was being discharged in "excellent" condition and "just has a little scar. He should be able to live normally."

Lehman said "everything is going well" for his son, who had a "well-baby appointment" yesterday. "He had good remarks from the doctor."

The Williams' baby was connected Thursday to a machine called extracorporeal membrane oxygenator transport, or ECMO, to keep the baby alive for the eight-hour flight to Texas.

They arrived about 5 a.m. Hawaii time yesterday and the parents went to the hospital to watch the baby transferred from the portable unit onto a permanent unit.

Then they checked into Fisher House, a residence on base for parents of children being treated. After a shower and something to eat, they went back to their son, Williams said.

"He's still in critical condition. They worry about them having strokes, bleeding, infections. A lot of things can still happen. He's still real bad and everything but I feel a lot better now that we're here," he said.

Joshua is the couple's third child. They have a 7-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. Williams said his mother came from Washington to take care of them.

The doctors, nurses and technicians at Wilford Hall Medical Center comprise a one-of-a-kind team, Williams said. "This is the best care you can get for this syndrome worldwide. ... They're only ones who travel and save babies all over the world."

The globetrotting specialists have treated 6,086 babies with meconium aspiration syndrome in 27 years and saved 94 percent of them.

The extracorporeal membrane oxygenator -- type of portable heart-lung bypass machine for newborns -- was first used in 1975. Until then, four of five babies with the syndrome died, according to the medical center.