The hospital was not equipped to handle a premature infant born in the twenty-sixth week, so the physician decided to transfer the patient to an urban medical center with appropriate facilities, some ninety miles away.

   The patient came to the emergency room believing she was in labor. She was in her twenty-sixth week and it was her first pregnancy. The physician examined her. He found her cervix was not dilated, but believed premature labor had in fact started.

   An ambulance was called. It arrived fifty minutes later. The patient was put on board twenty minutes later and it took an additional thirty-some minutes before the ambulance left, with the nurse along.

   Half way into the trip, the patient’s water broke. The nurse examined her and found her cervix dilated six centimeters and the baby’s head was visibly emerging. The nurse decided to redirect the ambulance to the nearest hospital, where the baby was delivered. A neonatal transport team came from the hospital which was the original destination and took the newborn the rest of the way. The child was blind and profoundly retarded. The family sued the first hospital, alleging the nurse was negligent for delaying the original transfer.