WINTER 2019
FALL 2019
Family Story
The Bata Family After a relatively easy pregnancy, Sydney and Alexander Bata went into their induction appointment with no concerns about the delivery. They had no reason to suspect that their son Lincoln’s first moments in the world would be so traumatic. But there were serious complications when Lincoln was born: he wasn’t breathing.
the doctors could not determine how long
The next few moments flew by in a
the NICU during the first four days of
blur. The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) team at Altru in Grand Forks
intubated Lincoln and noticed signs of seizure activity. The Batas made the
difficult decision to fly Lincoln to Sanford
Children’s Hospital in Fargo for what they described as “brain cooling.” Because
Lincoln had been without oxygen, they had no way of predicting the damage done to his organs.
For the cooling, Sanford would place Lincoln on a cooling mat, which
would keep his body temperature at a
hypothermic level. After three days, they
would slowly warm him back up. Once he was warm again, they would do an MRI
to see if there was any brain damage or seizure activity.
Alex went to Fargo immediately to be
with Lincoln and slept on the couch in his treatment, until Sydney could be
discharged from Altru and join the rest of the family in Fargo. In preparation
for Sydney’s arrival, a social worker at
the hospital suggested Alex apply for a room at the Ronald McDonald House.
At that time, the rooms were all full, and Continued on pg. 2