(The following letter was submitted to the Killingworth Ambulance Association by Killingworth resident Elizabeth Proctor. With her permission, we are reprinting it … along with photos she provided … to demonstrate the value of first responders and how they can be of vital importance to their communities).

To whom it may concern,

My name is Elizabeth Proctor, and I delivered my daughter, Arabella Proctor, at home on April 25, 2022. She was born at 3:22a.m, and everything was wonderful and went as planned with my midwives.

But that changed 10 hours later when she started having aepnic episodes.

I called 911, and two Killingworth EMTs arrived shortly afterward to help. They were so wonderful and knowledgeable that I knew my daughter was in capable hands. However, when they transported her by ambulance to Yale New Haven Hospital, she had another episode … and my world began to fall apart.

Arabella started having full-body seizures and stopped breathing again. She had to be hooked up to a ventilator –which she was on for five days – as well as the necessary medical support to keep her alive. When she received an MRI, we learned that she suffered multiple strokes and was having continuous seizures that required three different medications to stop.

It took three days for that to happen. She spent 28 days in the NICU before she was allowed to go home.

She has lost her vision due to the strokes, and we don’t know if her vision will come back. She has motor delay, too, and we won’t know until she’s 2 if that has something to do with cerebral palsy. She sees the chiropractor three times a week to do craniosacral therapy … she does physical therapy once a week … and she sees Birth to Three two times a month. She also sees multiple specialists every few months.

So she has a long road ahead with doctors and specialists, and we are taking it day by day.

A wonderful Killingworth woman named Jessica DeAngelo was so kind to start a GofundMePage for my daughter’s medical journey. If anyone is interested, this is the page link. The updates of her journey are on there as well: https://www.gofundme.com/f/liz-proctors-family?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet.

My daughter is a happy, snuggly baby and we are so thankful that she has pulled through. We are also grateful for the Killingworth Ambulance service and Yale’s NICU Hospital for their care. She wouldn’t be here without them.