Family of injured dancer grateful for fast, coordinated care at Baptist/Wolfson Children’s Emergency Center

With Meghan’s acrobatic dance class minutes from wrapping up, her mother walked from the waiting room to the gym and saw Meghan on the ground in pain.

As Deborah Myers moved toward her daughter, she looked up and saw staff running to get her. Meghan had done this very same back round-off dozens of times, in this studio and in the front lawn of the family’s Clay County home. But this time, something went wrong. Meghan clutched her left arm and paramedics were called.

The EMS team suggested taking Meghan to the Baptist/ Wolfson Children’s Emergency Center at Clay, just minutes from the dance studio, to get Meghan’s pain under control and take X-rays to see what the next step would be.

One look at the X-ray and it was clear that Meghan had a rare, closed fracture of the humerus and would need to be taken to Wolfson Children’s Hospital for emergency orthopedic surgery.

“I certainly wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years,” Deborah said.

The pediatric emergency doctor, Brian Gilligan, MD, had been in contact with Eric Loveless, MD, the pediatric orthopedic surgeon who would be doing the surgery that evening.

Dr. Gilligan went through what would happen next: Meghan would be taken to Wolfson Children’s Hospital and be admitted to the hospital for surgery.

“I knew what to expect and I could explain to my daughter what to expect, which was very important to me,” Deborah said.

“Everything was quick and seamless,” Deborah said. “I didn’t have to repeat myself a hundred times. They knew we were coming, they knew why we were coming and they were ready for us.”

Meghan was in surgery by 10:15 p.m. and an hour later, she had three pins placed to help the bone fuse back together. Meghan started the new school year with a bright pink cast from under her right shoulder all the way to her wrist. And she had quite a story about her summer vacation.