Doctor, Nurses Drive Through Snowstorm To Save Premature Baby

MARBLE FALLS, TX — Baby Zaylynn Arias has already overcome major obstacles in two weeks of life. Born Feb. 17 during the height of a crippling snowstorm, as well as a global pandemic, Zaylynn came into the world at just 24 weeks old — about 16 weeks premature.

Nearly two weeks later, it appears she is going to make it due to the team of doctors and nurses who braved that snowstorm to make sure little Zaylynn gets her full chance at life.

A 24-week preemie only has a 50 percent to 60 percent chance at survival, Dr. Curtis Copeland, a physician at the Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Marble Falls, Texas, the hospital where Zaylynn was born, told "Good Morning America."

Since the Marble Falls hospital is a Level 1 hospital, it does not have the capability to care for babies born premature such as Zaylynn. Doctors and nurses tried to arrange for the baby to be taken to a neonatal intensive care unit, but nothing was available due to the storm, which left millions across the state without power and battling freezing temperatures.

But Dr. John Loyd did answer the call. Instead of bringing Zaylynn to the NICU, Loyd and a small team of nurses at Dell Children's Medical Center in Austin brought the NICU to her.

The doctor packed his SUV with equipment and turned it into a makeshift NICU before battling the icy roads in a 55-mile trip to Marble Falls.

"I knew the baby and the family needed help, so I decided I was going to go," Loyd told "Good Morning America." "Having a sturdy, 7,500-pound, four-wheel-drive [SUV], I just felt like I could get there, and I wasn’t OK with the notion of doing nothing."

Meredith Schubert, the labor and delivery nurse at Baylor Scott, said her "jaw was on the floor" when she heard Loyd was driving himself to help.

"It was just a huge feeling of relief," Schubert said.

Eventually, when the weather improved, Zaylynn made it safely to Dell Children's, where she is expected to recover over the next several months.

"If everything goes perfectly, they’re usually in the NICU until their due date," Loyd said. "Zaylynn's chance of survival at this point is very good, and her chance of her growing up and going to school and having friends and growing up and getting a job and all those things that we want our children to do, is very good."

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