One week old and weighing a little more than 1 pound, Ellie Whitehall is beating all the odds in the Norton Children’s Hospital neonatal intensive care unit.
From Lebanon Junction, her family credits a firefighter for not only delivering Ellie but also saving the child's life. Ellie's mother, Brianna Whitehall, thought nothing of the pain she felt at the 24-week mark of her pregnancy.
"I was thinking it was Braxton Hicks (contractions), false labor basically," she said.
Minutes later, however, she was on her bathroom floor delivering a baby girl.
"My first phone call was my mom," said Edelin Whitehall, Ellie's father. "Who doesn't need their mom? I don't care how old you are."
Edelin Whitehall's next call was to 911, though. Ellie needed immediate care when she decided to come into the world 16 weeks early on the bathroom floor. When the Whitehalls' call for help went out over the radio, a volunteer firefighter for the Lebanon Junction Fire Department, William Brown, just happened to be a two minutes away.