Charleston, South Carolina – A Summerville nurse practitioner is turning an avoidable tragedy into a crusade to save baby lives throughout the Lowcountry and, eventually, the entire country.
Lindsay Spurgeon said she was working in a hospital emergency room when a premature infant born at home arrived by ambulance with no heartbeat. She said that the EMS staff did not have the necessary equipment or neonatal training to assist.
“One of the first things the EMS said to me was ‘We do not have equipment this size and we do not have the training to take care of these babies,'” Spurgeon elaborated. “That was very devastating for this situation when they are so ill-equipped and they want to help, but they do not have anyone supporting that.”
Spurgeon stated that hospitals routinely train medical staff for births, but emergency responders are rarely prepared in the same way.
“Hospital personnel such as NICU nurses, labor and delivery staff, and physicians are the people who attend hospital deliveries, and they have all received this training. However, outside of the hospital, it has never been supplied to EMS,” she stated.
Spurgeon founded the NeoHero Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting emergency responders in caring for babies before they arrive at the hospital.
NeoHero was formally introduced in March 2025. Since then, the organization has developed a neonatal resuscitation training course and put together supply packages with ventilation equipment, appropriately sized masks, and thermoregulation materials to keep babies warm. Spurgeon put together the kits herself. Each kit costs approximately $80 to manufacture.
NeoHero just earned a $20,000 award from the Medical Society of South Carolina’s Roper Saint Francis Physicians Endowment. Spurgeon stated that her objective is to conduct 1,800 training sessions for first responders by 2026, and that this money will help them get there. She stated that the cash will allow the nonprofit to conduct at least 150 training sessions and distribute lifesaving kits to certified responders.
“The money for the foundation is a game changer. “Honestly, I don’t think it could have happened at a better time for us,” Spurgeon said.
She also mentioned that the implementation of training necessitates coordination among authorities.
“We did need time to raise some funds, apply for grants, order equipment and do things like that,” according to her. “However, this is huge for these departments. They must have enough time to plan to get their employees on board, as well as the ability to study and absorb the content before we arrive to educate them. They also worked hard behind the scenes on this.
Despite the hurdles, she stated that the need is critical in South Carolina, where the preterm birth rate is 11.6%, earning the state a F on the March of Dimes 2024 report card. More than one out of every ten infants requires life-saving resuscitation at birth, while 13% of the state’s counties lack a birth center.
“In South Carolina, we have a lot of maternity health care deserts and it is basically where there is no hospital that is able to provide that care to a mother if she goes into labor,” says Spurgeon. “If something is happening in between that time, you have a real problem.”
The foundation’s training will begin on November 3 with 18 Charleston Fire Department paramedics, followed by sessions with Berkeley County EMS on November 10.
48 more paramedics are set to train in December.
Spurgeon expressed optimism that the project may reassure new parents during emergencies.
“I think it means that they can sleep a little better at night knowing that we are out here,” she told me. “We are getting the training to the first responders and if they have an emergency and they need to call 911, the people they are counting on in our community to keep them healthy are going to be better prepared.”
She stated that the ultimate goal is to expand the project beyond the Lowcountry and build offices and training centers in other communities around the country so that first responders countrywide are prepared when seconds count the most.
