• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Contact Us
  • Pay My Bill
  • Patient Portal
  • Show Search
KV Healthcare

KV Healthcare

Your Home for Health

MENUMENU
  • Find a Provider
  • Clinics & Specialties
        • Primary Clinics

        • KVH Family Medicine – Cle Elum
        • KVH Family Medicine – Ellensburg
        • KVH Home-Based Primary Care
        • KVH Internal & Adult Medicine
        • KVH Pediatrics
        • KVH Women’s Health
        • KVH Rapid Access
        • Specialty Services

        • Anticoagulation Clinic
        • Addiction Medicine
        • Specialty Clinics

        • ENT & Allergy
        • Cardiology
        • Dermatology
        • General Surgery
        • Home Health
        • Hospice
        • Neurology
        • Orthopedics
        • Urgent Care
        • Vascular Surgery
        • Workplace Health
        • Wound Care
        • Therapy Services

        • Physical Therapy
        • Speech Therapy
        • Occupational Therapy
  • Hospital Services
        • Services

        • Cardiopulmonary
        • Emergency Department
        • Imaging
        • Laboratory
        • Nutrition
        • Pharmacy
        • Surgical
        • Family Birthing Place

        • About Family Birthing Place
        • What to Expect
        • Birth & Family Education
        • Lactation Services
        • 4th Trimester Resource Center
        • Pregnancy & Infant Loss
  • Patients & Visitors
        • Patient Tools

        • Request Medical Records
        • Checking In
        • Visiting
        • Quality of Care
        • Patient Portal
        • Patient Policies
        • Insurance & Billing

        • Accepted Insurance
        • Price Transparency
        • Financial Assistance
        • Pay My Bill
        • No Surprise Act - Balanced Billing
  • About KVH
        • About KVH

        • About KVH
        • Mission & Vision
        • Board of Commissioners
        • Administration
        • Quality of Care
        • DAISY Award Program
        •  

        • News & Blog
        • Contact Us
        • Locations
        • Work With Us / Careers
        • Foundation

        • About the Foundation
        • Board of Directors
        • Ways to Give
        • Donate Now
        • Foundation Events
  • Donate Now
Hide Search

Alaric Hathaway

HealthNews · April 27, 2018 ·

Alaric Hathaway

Summer Hathaway was panicked.

Standing on the shoulder of Kittitas Highway holding her unconscious baby in one arm, she tossed things out of her van with the other in a desperate bid to attract attention.

Cars flew by, drivers seemingly unfazed by the scene unfolding on the side of the road. Then a stranger pulled over and uttered words Hathaway will never forget: “What can I do?”

The stranger was Kittitas Valley Healthcare’s Sarah Martin, patient service representative by occupation, Good Samaritan by inclination.

It happened late on the afternoon of March 3.

Hathaway, who lives in Kittitas, was driving her then 15-month-old son Alaric to the emergency room at KVH Hospital. That day Alaric had come down with a rash and fever, the same symptoms he’d had before suffering a seizure that shut down his airway during a visit to California six months earlier. Hathaway’s 19-year-old son, Triston McCowin, who has Down Syndrome, was riding in the back with Alaric when he told their mother Alaric was “sleeping.”

“I heard the baby gasping for breath,” Hathaway recalls. “I pulled over. I called 911.”

Enter Martin.

“As I drove by I saw Summer just throw the stroller out,” she recalls. “She was moving really fast. I just knew something was wrong. It was a gut feeling. My mom has always told us, since we were little, trust your gut – it’s usually right.

“I knew there was no way I could drive by and keep going and be OK with it. It would have haunted me if I could have helped and didn’t.”

Alaric Hathaway

So Martin turned around at the No. 6 Road and came back around. Neither a nurse nor a doctor, Martin didn’t know what she could do. So she did what for her comes naturally: She opened her arms and her heart.

Standing on the side of that road as vehicles rushed by, she held Alaric and talked to him.

When the paramedics arrived to transport Alaric to KVH Hospital, she offered to drive Hathaway’s van, an offer a grateful Hathaway declined. “Once I handed him off to the paramedics I was calmer,” says Hathaway, who continued on to the hospital with Triston.

And Martin?

Calm and determined to do whatever was needed when she stopped, emotion overwhelmed her when she went back to her car. “I just broke down in tears. I just wanted to hug my boys,” says Martin, the mother of two young sons.

As for Alaric, he was treated in the KVH Emergency Department, then airlifted a couple of hours later to Children’s Hospital in Seattle.

“The KVH emergency department was amazing,” Hathaway says. “The staff communicated with us and really showed they cared. They were taking care of us as well as Alaric.”

Since that day Alaric, whose parents call him the “miracle baby” they were told they would never have, has been in and out of Children’s.

Diagnosed with Chiari malformation, a condition in which the brain tissue extends into the spinal column, he may be headed for surgery. He’s also been diagnosed with epilepsy after another seizure in early April while in Seattle.

In the midst of dealing with the challenges Alaric faces, Hathaway says she will never forget Martin’s kindness. “I had a half-naked, unconscious baby in my arms and everybody was just going by,” she says, her voice emotional. “I think I would have been out of my mind if Sarah hadn’t stopped.”

KVH Stories, Patient Stories Emergency Assistance, patient

Primary Sidebar

Categories

MENUMENU
  • KVH Stories
    • Patient Stories
    • Provider Stories
    • Donor Stories
    • Employee Stories
    • Volunteer Stories
    • Share Your Story
    • All
  • Blog Posts
    • Behind the Scenes
    • Childbirth & Family Education
    • Community
    • Health
    • Lifestyle
    • Provider
    • Safety
    • COVID-19
    • All
  • News & Media
    • KVH News
    • Weather/Disaster Notifications
  • Press Releases

Footer Top 1

HRSA National Health Service Corps Site

Footer Top 2

603 S. Chestnut Street - Ellensburg, WA 98926
509.962.9841

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Footer Top 3

Footer Bottom 1

Download the MyPatient Portal App
Apple Store Google Play Store

Footer Bottom 2

  • About KVH
  • KVH Legal Information
  • Price Transparency
  • Careers
  • Board of Commissioners
  • Contact Us
  • Foundation

Footer Bottom 3

  • Our Locations
  • Hospital Services
  • Clinics & Specialty Services
  • Patients & Visitors
  • Patient Policies
  • Events & Education
  • Press Releases

Footer Bottom 4

Google Translate