Technology Saves
Pregnant Woman and Baby
She is the first pregnant woman to
use rescue pod

Published : Monday, 20 Jul 2009, 4:39 PM CDT

SAINT CLOUD, Minn. - A young mother is getting to know her new baby after the 18-year-old suddenly collapsed last spring. She was saved with a device called the rescue pod.

For Samantha Kankelfitz, delivering Serenity was a miracle.

Along a sidewalk in St. Cloud in February Kankelfitz’s heart stopped beating for seven minutes. She was four months pregnant.

Cardiologist Keith Lurie says paramedics started CPR with compression and a device called the rescue pod. Lurie said this is the first pregnant patient he has taken care of who has had cardiac arrest. But when using the rescue pod the blood flow to the heart and brain doubles.

The CPR along with a defibrillator got Kankelfitz's heart beating again.

But when she arrived at the Central Minnesota Heart Center in St. Cloud, Kankelfitz was comatose. Doctors used a cooling blanket to preserve brain function.

She is the first pregnant woman in the world to receive treatment with the rescue pod and only the third pregnant woman to be cooled.

Thanks to technology Kankelfitz and Serenity are alive.