A woman has given birth to a “miracle baby” during Hurricane Milton after making a perilous journey to hospital while in labour.
Kenzie Lewellen, who was 39 weeks pregnant, witnessed the devastation from her hospital window, with a tree being ripped out of the ground as the massive storm pounded Florida earlier this week.
She also needed a caesarean section as the baby boy was in the wrong position. “I was very scared,” the first-time mother said.
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Milton made landfall as a Category 3 storm at about 8.30pm local time on Wednesday (1.30am UK time on Thursday), causing massive flooding and leaving millions of people without power.
At least 16 people have been confirmed dead in Florida in the hurricane’s aftermath, including at least five due to tornadoes in St Lucie County.
Ms Lewellen’s labour began at home in Port Charlotte at 4am on Wednesday, Sky’s US partner network NBC News reports.
At that time, the storm had not yet hit the state but Ms Lewellen and her boyfriend Dewey Bennett’s house already started taking in water before her contractions began.
“My mind was just running a million miles an hour, like, what am I going to do?” the 22-year-old woman said. “I was very nervous.”
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Florida before and after Hurricane Milton
Then, after she had been in labour for more than four hours at home, the couple started making their way to Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Venice.
“My mom was driving us, and it was extremely windy, so we were trying to be as cautious as possible,” Ms Lewellen said.
“There was not really many people on the roads, because it was so windy outside and it was raining quite a bit.”
Dewey Bennett with his son Dewey Lester Bennett IV. Pic: Kenzie Lewellen
The couple were even more on edge during the medical emergency as Mr Bennett’s father, also named Dewey, had died when Hurricane Irma slammed into Florida in 2017.
“My dad had a massive heart attack because the ambulance could not come out to us during the storm,” the 24-year-old said.
“I just didn’t want to go through what I had to go through with the last hurricane back in 2017,” added Mr Bennett.
Watching a tree uproot during labour
When the trio arrived at hospital, only one person could be with her. So, Ms Lewellen had to say goodbye to her mother.
“I was very, very upset that my mom couldn’t stay, because she is my best friend and one of my biggest supporters,” she said. But “we were able to FaceTime pretty much the entire time”.
Kenzie Lewellen and Dewey Bennett. Pic: Kenzie Lewellen
She then went through labour in a room with a window view of the destruction as the storm struck the area.
“I was telling him [Mr Bennett], I’m like, ‘Oh, that tree looks like it’s going to fly out of the ground!’ when I was labouring, because we were just watching the storm and the wind and the rain go crazy. It was definitely intense out there,” she said.
“And it actually did uproot,” added, Mr Bennett, the baby’s father.
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Florida escapes worst of hurricane
Unplanned C-section
After being in labour for hours, Ms Lewellen was given some distressing news. The baby was in the wrong position, and she would need an unplanned C-section.
“I had so much going through my head at that point, a storm and my family,” she said.
Problems with the epidural left her in extreme pain for hours until she was given anaesthesia.
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“I was just on my own, by myself, and I was very scared. If I didn’t have the doctors and the nurses that I had, it would have been a whole lot worse,” she said.
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Dewey Lester Bennett IV was safely delivered at 11.45pm, weighing 8lbs.
“He is a miracle baby,” Ms Lewellen said.
In a statement, the chief executive of Sarasota Memorial Health Care System David Verinder said: “We couldn’t be prouder of our team. They left their homes and many left their families to be here for our patients and community.”
Along with Dewey, six other babies were born at the two Sarasota Memorial hospitals during Milton, Mr Verinder said.