After hours in the ER, he was able to witness the moment his child was born.
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — “My wife and I, we came into the hospital,” Collin Gallagher recalled going to UF Health Flagler Hospital in St. Augustine Tuesday with his wife, Rachel. They were expecting their first child. Later that afternoon, labor was induced.
Gallagher remembered that during labor, “I felt genuinely at peace, but all of a sudden, I made it halfway through the sentence of ‘I don’t’ feel well.’ And then I fell backwards and hit my head on the closet.”
He said, “I just totally blacked out.”
“I felt like I was literally out for eight hours, but apparently I was only out for two seconds time. The nurses were waving had sanitizer wipes in front of my nose, trying to wake me up,” he gestured.
Gallagher said the nurses urged him to go to the ER to get checked out.
While he was being checked out by the doctors, they started asking him about his heart. They also told him he had an arrythmia and a murmur. He did not know this at all.
“They said, ‘Hey, we want you admitted. This could be a legitimate heart block that may require a pacer.’ And I’m only 26,” Gallagher noted.
He said he was in the ER for four hours. During that time, he Facetimed with their doula, “trying to witness my wife go through labor.” He remembers, “I was prying the whole time. I was like, ‘God, please be with my wife and with the medical staff.'”
Eventually, the medical team wheeled Gallagher up to see his wife, just in time to see his healthy daughter, Jael Eilza, be born.
“It was perfect timing,” Gallagher said. “We were able to see the miracle of life that is a human being that we’ve produced now on top of my wife hugging her.”
Doctors say people have heart issues they may not know about, and that’s why it’s important to listen to the body.
Cardiologist Dr. Neil Sanghvi said if you experience, “shortness of breath, chest pressure, feeling faint, fainting, you want to get it checked out. The best news you can get is everything is okay. An at the very least, you’ve learned about a problem that can be monitored and treated accordingly. “
Gallaher told First Coast News, “If it weren’t for me just spontaneously falling in the midst of this labor, and then the team quickly forcing me out of the room to go to do the right thing and check in at the ER, I may, who knows we’ll find out in a week, be walking around with a heart condition that required immediate assistance.”
So, this is a story about new love and about taking care of the heart.
“It’s been amazing,” Gallagher beamed, “Ironically, on Valentine’s Day!”
