For Dr. Vian Nguyen, one of the more harrowing moments of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 came when she fielded an emergency call about a woman in labor who was stuck in her home, trapped by flooding that made it impossible for an ambulance to reach her.
“The family had moved upstairs because water was already filling the downstairs,” says Nguyen, chief medical officer for Legacy Community Health, a federally qualified health center in southeast Texas.
The pregnant woman’s home was located in Gulfton, a predominantly Latino and Black neighborhood on the southwest side of Houston. Unable to reach her, Nguyen says she was forced to talk through the delivery with the woman’s husband, who was able to carry it out successfully and without complications.
