When Judy Casperson’s newborn son entered the world at 3:23 a.m. Friday, not only did the nine people in the Erlanger hospital delivery room witness the birth, so did her husband, Maj. Sean Casperson, thousands miles away in Iraq.
At Erlanger’s downtown campus, tech workers had set up a laptop using the hospital’s wireless high-speed Internet to connect the first-time father to his wife via Web camera.
“I was determined to have this,” said Mrs. Casperson, 38. “The hospital did everything in their power to get it up for me and was very accommodating. Everybody has just been so wonderful.”
For compete coverage see tomorrow's Times Free Press.
Health care reporter Emily Bregel has worked at the Chattanooga Times Free Press since July 2006. She previously covered banking and wrote for the Life section. Emily, a native of Baltimore, Md., earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Columbia University. She received a first-place award for feature writing from the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists’ Golden Press Card Contest for a 2009 article about a boy with a congenital heart defect. She ...
The military has changed.
Once upon a time, giving birth was considered a medical emergency and fathers were given "emergency leave" to be with their wives during that time. Expedited, priority mil-air space-available free travel was provided to boot. [The 10-days emergency leave time was in addition to the 30-days annual leave.]
Evidently a 38 year old wife giving birth is not considered important enough to the military to bring the father home from overseas deployment.
So much for a compassionate or humanitarian American government; that compassion is evidently reserved for foreigners only.
Congratulations to the new parents! Their new lives, as well as their son's, and a great adventure have begun. I rejoice in their happiness. God bless them all.
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