Gazette Newspaper - Pregnant woman’s dramatic Clinton rescue comes full circle

Pregnant woman’s dramatic Clinton rescue comes full circle


Mother working at hospital where she and her son were saved after 2009 crash

by Mimi Liu, The Gazette

Sade Davis Former Clinton resident Sade Davis, pictured with her son, Jaden, then 13 months, was rescued by firefighters and paramedics from the Clinton Fire/Emergency Medical Services Station in October 2009 when her car slid off the road and flipped into a creek off Temple Hill Road. Davis, who was seven-and-a-half months pregnant with Jaden at the time of the crash, now lives in Waldorf and works as a chart manager in the emergency room at Southern Maryland Hospital Center, with the same people who had saved her life. Her son turns 2 on Dec. 8.





Greg Dohler/The Gazette/Sade Davis Former Clinton resident Sade Davis, pictured with her son, Jaden, then 13 months, was rescued by firefighters and paramedics from the Clinton Fire/Emergency Medical Services Station in October 2009 when her car slid off the road and flipped into a creek off Temple Hill Road. Davis, who was seven-and-a-half months pregnant with Jaden at the time of the crash, now lives in Waldorf and works as a chart manager in the emergency room at Southern Maryland Hospital Center, with the same people who had saved her life. Her son turns 2 on Dec. 8.











As Sade Davis was moving belongings from Clinton to her new home in Waldorf in late October, the memories of a car crash that nearly killed her and her unborn child more than two years ago started to surface.

A receipt for a maternity photo shoot scheduled at a mall in Potomac. New clothes and earrings that had been purchased for the photo shoot. Flashbacks of going to pick up her best friend in Fort Washington before heading to the mall.

But Davis never made it to the mall on Oct. 24, 2009. On the way, her car slid off the road, hitting a tree before flipping over into a creek near the 8900 block of Temple Hill Road in Clinton.

Doctors think she might have crashed because of blacking out behind the wheel from low blood pressure caused by the pregnancy.

Firefighters and paramedics from the Clinton Fire/EMS station found Davis, who was seven-and-a-half months pregnant, underwater in her seat belt and unconscious. They managed to free her from the car, and her son, Jaden, was born that December.

Now Davis, 25, has more to celebrate, as she started work in late October as a chart manager in the emergency room at Southern Maryland Hospital Center in Clinton, the same hospital where she had been a patient after the crash in 2009.

“It’s a blessing to see my life come back full circle and work here,” she said.

The journey to get her life back on track has not been easy for Davis. Although she suffered no serious, long-term injuries in the crash, in the months afterward she had dizzy spells and blacked out a number of times.

Her mother, Cheryl Davis, a former Clinton resident who now lives with her daughter in Waldorf, said that according to paperwork they later received from the hospital, her daughter’s heart stopped beating twice on the way to the hospital after she was pulled from the water.

“I’m happy that [Sade and Jaden] are still here,” Cheryl Davis said. “I could have been attending a funeral.”

Davis’ story and the rescue by emergency responders also was included by Discovery Channel in an episode in its “Surviving Death” TV series, which aired in March 2010.

Also in 2010, when Jaden was 1, he was diagnosed with Type I diabetes. Davis, worried about her son’s condition, decided to leave her job in medical records management at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., to take care of her son full-time.

The Clinton hospital was one of several places Davis, a 2004 graduate of Surrattsville High School, applied to this year when she decided to return to work.

Despite these challenges, Davis said she has a lot to be thankful for in her life.

“With Thanksgiving right behind the anniversary of the accident, and Jaden’s birthday being right after that, followed by Christmas, this time of the year is always a big time for reflection,” she said.

Dr. Eric McDonald, head of the emergency department at Southern Maryland Hospital Center, said Davis has “a lot of energy and excitement.”

“With what she’s been through, I think it has helped her with her job here,” he said. “She definitely has that perspective that most people don’t have.”

McDonald was not working the day Davis came into the hospital from the crash, but Davis said she comes into contact with the doctor and some of the nurses who worked her case and remember her from the crash.

Davis also keeps in contact with Lt. Dale Giampetroni, one of her rescuers, and the other emergency responders with email updates on Jaden and the rest of her family.

“It’s always in the back of your mind,” said Giampetroni of Silver Spring, who was working at the Clinton fire station at the time of the crash and now works at the Landover Hills station. “Now any time I see a young pregnant woman, I think of her.”

Davis said she often drives by the site of the crash.

“I just want to be a better mom and a better person,” she said. “It’s been a humbling experience.”

She said Jaden, who turns 2 on Dec. 8, is developing motor skills quickly.

“He’s such a fun little guy,” she said. “He can recite the ABCs and count to 20, and he’s learning shapes and colors.”

Cheryl Davis said she is confident her daughter will fit right in at her new job at the Clinton hospital that played a role in saving her life.

“I just truly believe that God saved Sade and Jaden on that day to do special things in their lifetime,” she added.

mliu@gazette.net

Original Stories can be found here:


http://pgfdpio.blogspot.com/2009/10/clinton-crash-involves-vehicle-in-water.html

http://pgfdpio.blogspot.com/2009/11/county-council-issues-proclamation-for.html

http://pgfdpio.blogspot.com/2009/10/drowning-crash-victim-saved-by-fire.html

http://pgfdpio.blogspot.com/2010/01/pgfd-on-inside-edition.html






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