Kevin & Brittany

Brittany was in the final weeks of pregnancy when she got the news no one wants to hear: her husband, Kevin, was seriously injured at work. A tree fell during a storm, crushing his car and injuring his spine. He would need advanced care and long-term rehabilitation just as they were preparing to welcome their second baby girl. The northern California couple urgently needed a unique solution to meet the needs of his injury and her imminent delivery—and found it in Englewood, Colorado.

“For me, the most important thing was that we were able to stay together. With our daughter on the way, coming here meant I didn’t have to choose between getting the best care for Kevin and making sure we were as prepared as possible for a challenging delivery because my baby was breech,” Brittany said.

Kevin’s care team in California told them about Craig Hospital, a renowned neurorehabilitation and research hospital, and Swedish Medical Center, a Level 1 Trauma Center and home to the Swedish Neuro Network—a team of nationally recognized neuroscience physicians and researchers in the treatment of traumatic injury, stroke and neurologic disorders. While owned and operated separately, Swedish Medical Center and Craig Hospital are next door to each other and share a corridor to support their patients and staff. Most importantly for Kevin and Brittany, both hospitals believe keeping families together is essential to great patient outcomes. “Even though we had to uproot and move out of state to get the care, we knew this was the best fit for us with our two-year-old and another baby on the way,” Kevin said.

By the time Kevin was ready to move from his local trauma center to Craig Hospital, Brittany was more than 35-weeks pregnant and had to get her local OB/GYN’s permission to fly on Kevin’s medical transport jet. With the help of Craig’s inpatient care team, she found an apartment in less than 48 hours and returned to California to pick up their daughter. “When we landed back in Colorado, the staff made sure we could come right to Craig. It was the first time [our daughter] got to see Kevin since his accident. It was really hard, really emotional for all of us. But we were able to take comfort, knowing that whatever lay ahead, we would be able to take it on together and with the help of the hospitals’ two amazing care teams,” Brittany said.

While Craig coordinated with Swedish’s surgeons to treat pressure wounds that developed when Kevin was hospitalized in California, Brittany found an obstetrics office supported by Dr. Michael Hall, a longtime OB-GYN physician at Swedish. He’s an expert at vaginal breech delivery—an option that wasn’t ever presented to Brittany by her OB/GYN in California, but it became more important than ever. She didn’t want to be laid up with a long recovery from a C-section with Kevin facing another three to six weeks bedrest to address his pressure wounds. From the start, Brittany was clear about her birth plan: Kevin needed to be there, in person, for the delivery.

Doctors and nurses at both hospitals, most of them with children of their own, were touched by the family’s story and got to work planning right away. Kevin and Brittany would need a rare room: big enough for two beds, all their supporting equipment, medical staff, family and space for their brand-new baby girl.

As the family got closer to the due date, a transport bed was permanently parked outside Kevin’s room at Craig. The staff had a phone tree of nurses who asked to be called in when the baby arrived. “When the call finally came, I was like, ‘It’s go-time.’ One nurse was working and another was 15 minutes away. They both came to help right away,” Kevin said.

In the early hours of Mother’s Day, Brittany went into labor. When she was ready to push, a carefully orchestrated plan fell into place: Swedish nurses alerted Craig Hospital and cleared the way for Kevin’s care team to escort him through the two hospitals and to her side in a matter of minutes. He was there to support her through the entire process. “The fact that he was able to lay right next to me the whole time I was pushing and when she was born was pretty magical,” Brittany said. “I started crying and everybody started crying. Auntie Joy and Auntie Amanda, as we call them now, were our first two Craig nurses, so they were some of the first people to hold her,” Kevin added.

After the delivery, Brittany and the girls made it a point to see Kevin in his recovery every day. Craig Hospital developed a care and rehabilitation plan to help him participate in his role as a parent again. Kevin says his focus is now on getting stronger and getting back to his community, and today, after six months of rehabilitation at Craig, the family is back in California for the first time as a family of four. “We made the right choice to come here. Not only was it the best place for me, but it ended up being the best place for our family as well,” Kevin said. “On top of the magic of delivery and everybody being supportive and the nurses offering babysitting and bringing their kids in to play with ours... it's just been incredible.”

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