As an NICU nurse at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, Erin Hederman, RN, BSN, has made numerous trips in the back of an ambulance transporting tiny patients to her facility. However, the trip she took from Chicago to Elgin, Ill., and back Feb. 2 was like no other thanks to a powerful winter storm that hammered the region.

“The weather, at least for any transport that I’ve ever been on, has never been a factor,” says Hederman, a Rush nurse for more than six years. “We always go out preparing for the worst-case scenario, but usually the worst-case scenario solely involves circumstances surrounding the infant.”

As the storm moved into the area Feb. 1, Hederman learned that evening of a transport request for a baby boy with a skull fracture from Elgin’s Sherman Hospital.

Teams from Rush and Sherman stayed in contact throughout the process, with Sherman representatives e-mailing CT scans as Hederman and her Rush colleagues closely monitored the weather.

Hederman was among nearly a dozen NICU team members to sleep overnight on an empty patient floor on cots and in hospital beds and recliners.

Because the patient was “clinically stable,” the facilities settled on delaying the transport until the next morning.

“We were aware that Lake Shore Drive had been shut down,” Hederman says. “We had heard the horror stories of people being stranded. We didn’t feel nervous about it until we actually stepped outside and were in the ambulance.”

Whiteout conditions in the city limited visibility, and the first hour of the trip left Hederman and fellow passenger and neonatal nurse practitioner Megan Jones, APN, with jangled nerves. “When we were the only ones on I-90, except for the cars that had crashed into medians and snowbanks ... It was scary out there,” Hederman says.

As the ambulance slowly traversed the snow-packed highway, Hederman kept in contact via text message with her unit director, Debbie Gist, RNC-NIC, BSN. “I had texted her first that we made it to Elk Grove (Village) and we were starting to see pavement and a little bit of sun. She texted me back, ‘Thanks, that makes me worry less.’”

Hederman’s next text, though, wasn’t as promising. “I texted her, ‘It looks like the end of the world out here,’” Hederman says. “Any end of the world or zombie movie you’ve ever seen, where the cars are just abandoned, that’s what it looked like.”

What usually is a 45-minute trip to Sherman took one hour, 50 minutes.

However, the one-hour ride home “was completely different,” Hederman says. “We could see pavement in the city, and we could see sunlight.”

Hederman says Gist and other managers worked on several fronts before the transport, including trying to find a closer Level 3 NICU for the patient, attempting to procure a heavier “box rig” ambulance and requesting a police escort. Though none of those scenarios worked out, Hederman appreciated their efforts.

“[Gist] was wonderful the whole time, and so were all the managers,” Hederman says. “They were very concerned about us and, of course, concerned about the baby.”

Hederman credited her NICU and PICU colleagues, along with her managers, with making the trip a success. “Everybody did a really great job of collaborating and making sure that despite the weather and despite the unusual circumstances, that we made this a can do,” Hederman says.