Health Watch: Nurse Saves Baby

ATLANTA - Sharlay McKenzie is part nurse, part guardian angel. The Wellstar Douglas Hospital birthing center nurse is being praised for saving a newborn's life.

McKenzie's connection to Cameron Arrington runs deep.

"I just look at him as a miracle, really," said Arrington's mother, Kelsie.

Kelsie and Terry Arrington's son was born July 5 in the birthing center at Wellstar Douglas Hospital in Douglasville,

Terry Arrington helped deliver Cameron, in one of the most incredible moments of his life.

"There's no words for it, I mean it's just, you just get a chill," said Terry Arrington.

"He was fine, everything seemed normal," said Kelsie Arrington.

"The next day we started noticing his legs, in the pictures we were taking. They just, the right side looked dark," said the new father.

That morning, McKenzie took a closer look at the baby.

"I went in to do his assessment, and while I was listening to his heart rate, I heard an unusual heart sound," said McKenzie.

"She gave a look, when she was listening to him, like she knew, she knew there was something going on," recalled Kelsie Arrington.

"I called the pediatrician and told her that I couldn't describe anything other than it was something I had never heard before," said McKenzie.

When McKenzie checked the baby's heart again, the sounds were back to normal.

A heart specialist brought in from Children's Healthcare of Atlanta couldn't hear the sound either.

"At first she told me there was nothing wrong with the baby and the baby looked normal," said McKenzie.

But the baby had a tiny time bomb inside his chest.

Part of his aorta, the main artery that feeds blood to his heart, was half the size that it should be and without warning cause the heart to suddenly stop.

"When I went back in the pediatrician was there and she grabbed me by the arm and said, 'Sharle, this baby has a co-arctation of the aorta and would've died if you hadn't heard what you heard,'" McKenzie said.

"I was devastated. I didn't know what to think, I thought I was going to lose him," said Kelsie Arrington.

If McKenzie had not heard what she heard, the baby would have been discharged the next day and his parents would have gone home unaware that he had a life-threatening problem with his heart.

"A lot of babies who have that condition go undiagnosed, until they go into heart failure, they go into congestive heart failure and to shock," said McKenzie.

Cameron was rushed to the hospital for open heart surgery. A surgeon opened the baby's chest, and repaired his aorta.

"We just had to let him lay in the bed in ICU, and it was pretty bad," said Terry Arrington.

Within a day or two, the Arrington's baby began to turn a corner and a month and half later is making a full recovery.

"He's fine, like nothing ever happened to him," said Terry Arrington.

"From now on, what I understand is he's going to live a perfectly normal life," said McKenzie.

"I shouldn't be holding him right now. If we'd have went home, he wouldn't be here. That's the only explanation I have, is that he was a miracle from God," said Kelsie Arrington.

McKenzie said she isn't sure why she heard what no one else did that morning.

"I really just thought it had to have been an angel that told me that something was wrong with the baby," McKenzie said.

Now, thanks to McKenzie, Cameron Arrington is just fine.

"He'll always know about her. He'll know she basically saved his life," said Kelsie Arrington.