Wilford Hall team helps save baby girl Published Nov. 11, 2005 LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) -- Upon request from a Texas senator, the United States Air Force was tasked to transport a 2-month-old Galveston baby girl to Santa Rosa Children's Hospital in San Antonio. The baby has been hooked to an Extra-Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation machine at a local hospital there for 19 days and has a serious heart defect requiring surgery. A team from Wilford Hall Medical Center departed aboard an ambulance-bus and ambulance with a portable ECMO machine at 5:15 p.m. on Nov. 10 and arrived in Galveston shortly thereafter. The Wilford Hall team returned to San Antonio International Airport aboard a C-17 Globemaster III at approximately 5:00 a.m. today with the baby in stable condition where she was immediately transferred to Santa Rosa. Many hospitals worldwide now have ECMO machines, but no other hospital has the long-distance air transportable capability which the Air Force requires to help save infants and children of military families who may be stationed in remote or locations without access to the equipment. Wilford Hall medics place six to 12 patients on ECMO each year, and two to four require long-distance transport, often from locations such as Alaska and Hawaii.