CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) – A Summerville nurse practitioner is turning a preventable tragedy into a mission to save newborn lives across the Lowcountry and, eventually, throughout the country.

Lindsay Spurgeon said she was working in a hospital emergency room when a premature baby delivered at home arrived by ambulance without a heartbeat. She said the EMS crew did not have the proper equipment or neonatal training to help.

“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 said. “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 said hospitals train medical staff extensively for births, but emergency responders rarely receive the same preparation.

“Hospital personnel like NICU, or labor and delivery staff, physicians, those are the people who attend deliveries in the hospital and they all have this training. But historically, outside of the hospital, it has just not been offered to EMS,” she said.

That moment led Spurgeon to create the NeoHero Foundation, a nonprofit focused on helping emergency responders care for newborns before they reach the hospital.

NeoHero officially launched in March 2025. Since then, the organization has built a neonatal resuscitation training course and assembled supply kits with ventilation equipment, properly sized masks and thermoregulation materials to keep babies warm. Spurgeon puts the kits together herself. Each kit costs about $80 to make.

NeoHero recently received a $20,000 grant from The Medical Society of South Carolina’s Roper Saint Francis Physicians Endowment. Spurgeon said her goal is to do 1,800 training sessions for first responders in 2026 and that this money will help them get there. She said the funding will allow the nonprofit to complete at least 150 training sessions and send certified responders out with the lifesaving kits.

“This money for the foundation is just a game changer. Honestly, I think that it couldn’t have come at a better time for us,” Spurgeon said.

She also noted that the rollout of training takes coordination across agencies.

“We did need time to raise some funds, apply for grants, order equipment and do things like that,” she said. “But also, this is huge for these departments. They have to have time to plan to get their staff on board and they have to be able to study and learn the material before we come out and teach them. They put a lot of work into this behind the scenes as well.”

Despite the challenges, she said the need is dire in South Carolina, where the preterm birth rate is 11.6%, earning the state an F on the 2024 March of Dimes report card. More than one in 10 newborns require lifesaving resuscitation at birth and 13% of counties in the state don’t have any form of 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,” Spurgeon said. “If something is happening in between that time, you have a real problem.”

The foundation will begin training Nov. 3 with 18 Charleston Fire Department paramedics, followed by sessions with Berkeley County EMS Nov. 10.

48 more paramedics are scheduled to train in December.

Spurgeon said she hopes the effort helps new parents feel reassured in emergencies.

“I think it means that they can sleep a little better at night knowing that we are out here,” she said. “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 said the ultimate goal is to expand the effort beyond the Lowcountry and establish offices and training centers in different cities across the country so that first responders nationwide are ready when seconds matter most.