Mark Carbon, MD

God bless Pediatric Emergency Room Physician Mark Carbon and the entire staff in Children’s Hospital New Orleans’ (CHNOLA) emergency room. Thursday started off like any other day and my 2.5 year old son seemed his normal self, except for a low grade fever of 99 degrees.
Fast forward 5 hours and my son still had a 99 degree fever, but he whined of being tired and became very lethargic in a fairly short period of time. I got the call at work and instructed my wife to bring him directly to CHNOLA’s E.R. as she was already fairly close by and he was still responsive but very lethargic. Not wanting to incriminate myself, I’ll just say I MAY have exceeded the posted speed limits exponentially in an effort to meet them there; and actually beat them there by 2 minutes.
Upon her arrival to the E.R., my son was very lethargic and went into a seizure. We were immediately brought into the back of the E.R. and assessed by Dr. Carbon; who immediately and decisively took charge. Within a few minutes my son was being treated by a team of 9 professionals and we were asked to step back to allow the additional personnel to his bedside. It’s a scary sight to see the trauma team cutting your kids clothes off, as you know they sensed the urgency. However, they never asked us to leave the E.R. and I’m glad as we wanted to be by his side. (For the record, they was no way that I was ever going to leave his side)
Our son’s seizure or low tolerance to the seizure medicine Ativan caused him to lose control of his airway and he had to be bagged and then intubated. And when the intubation tube wasn’t quite in the right place, Dr. Carbon calmly ordered it removed and a new one inserted. For anyone who’s seen this performed in person on a loved one, I can assure you that it is difficult to watch; especially when it’s your only child.
But Dr. Carbon conducted this medical team of respiratory therapists (Byron), neurologists, pulmonologists and nurses with a calmness that was reassuring; or at least as reassuring as it could be under the circumstances. He was a steadfast professional that triumphed under pressure; especially the pressure of 2 overly concerned parents. But even as he was fully involved in giving orders and making decisions, he still took time to quickly answer our questions while he worked. It didn’t take long for the E.R. to diagnose his virus, as it was one of the 17 most common kid viruses they test for.
I’m not sure how much time passed before he was stable enough to be transferred to the Pediatric Intensive Care unit (PICU), but each second felt like an eternity; And I’m hoping that we thanked him on the way out. But like I said, we were overwhelmed with emotions and wanted to stay at our son’s side as he was wheeled up to the PICU.
So thank you Dr. Mark Carbon and thank you to everyone on duty Thursday night, as you truly did save our son’s life.
FYI — In 24 hours, our son was released from the PICU and placed in a regular room. And 20 hours later we were home.