Brooke Dadisman, RN, recently experienced one of the more unusual child births in her 16 years as a nurse. In the middle of her shift at Flaget Memorial Hospital’s birth center, she received a call from her brother, a Nelson County Sheriff’s Office deputy, who asked her to walk him through performing an emergency delivery in a parking lot.
“I’ve always had my heart set on moms, babies, maternity care and all of that,” Brooke says. “[That night] when my phone rang, all I could hear my brother say was ‘Are you at work? I need you.’ My dad and brothers are all policemen, so in my mind, I’m thinking someone’s been shot. But he’s like ‘Dispatch called; there’s a lady having a baby in her car.’ I thought, ‘Oh that I can handle.’”
Once the baby cried, Brooke says she could hear a collective sigh of relief. It was business as usual for her.
“Everyone keeps saying I’m the hero,” Brooke says. “But I’m not. I was just the support person doing what I love, granted it was on the phone. [The sheriff’s deputies] are the true rock stars. I’m very proud of them.”
Brooke says the support she’s received at work, particularly from the fellow nurses on her shift and the doctors, has made them her “second family.”
“I don’t have any sisters, just three brothers,” Brooke says. “My night shift girls are like my sisters to me. We’re all just that close. We support each other. We share our families with each other. Even my boys call my co-workers their aunts. Drs. Hall and Folmar always share their knowledge base and teach us what they know.”
When she’s not delivering babies, Brooke spends time with her husband of 19 years and their three boys. She also volunteers with her sons’ former elementary school to educate children about her job.
“I like going and talking about my job,” Brooke says. “[The kids] know I deliver babies, so I always regret when they ask the question ‘Where do babies come from?’”
“The one question that just knocked me on my butt was this little kid who had a brother or sister who passed away as a baby, and he wanted to know what we do with babies that that’s happened to and if they go to heaven,” she says. “Those types of questions are just heartbreaking. Parents who have lost a baby show so much courage to bring a baby into the world they know they aren’t going to have. It’s beyond words. I find peace knowing I can bring a little bit of comfort to the family.”
Brooke Dadisman does not try to avoid the heartbreak that sometimes occurs in Flaget Memorial Hospital’s birth center. In fact, she said she is dedicated to “walking that path” with bereaved parents.
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