Mississippi Today
Mississippi moms and babies are dying. This training teaches first responders how to save their lives.
Mississippi moms and babies are dying. This training teaches first responders how to save their lives.
Matt Greer of Brookhaven was driving home from his shift at the Mississippi Center for Emergency Services, where he works as a flight nurse, when he got a call from his younger sister. A few days earlier, she had given birth to a healthy baby girl after an uncomplicated pregnancy. Now, she told him she had a headache.
He asked her to check her blood pressure: 140/90.
For most patients, that reading isn’t concerning. For a pregnant or postpartum woman, however, it’s an indication of preeclampsia. Greer told her to go to the hospital and eventually she did, getting treatment to prevent seizure and stroke.
But Greer thinks things might have gone very differently had he not completed a new training run by the Mississippi Center for Emergency Services just a few weeks before his sister called.
The STORK Program equips first responders and medical professionals without specialized obstetrics training – including emergency room doctors and nurses – to handle pregnancy and delivery complications like hypertension and hemorrhage. Doctors at the University of Mississippi Medical Center recognized that in a rural state with dwindling options for obstetrical care, women are likely to deliver outside of dedicated labor and delivery wards, and to need care from people who don’t see pregnant patients every day. So they created the STORK training.
Greer has years of experience as a nurse, and his sister is a nurse, too. But without STORK, he would not have known how to interpret her blood pressure reading.
“I would have blown it off,” he said. “Without that fresh on my mind … I would have said, ‘that’s not too bad. You’ll be alright.’”
Chronic health conditions like obesity and diabetes plus poor access to prenatal care contribute to Mississippi’s worst-in-the-nation outcomes for moms and babies, and can’t be treated during a single interaction with a health care provider. But potentially lethal hypertension and hemorrhage are not complicated to manage – if a provider knows what to watch for and what to do.
And even inside hospitals, that can be a big “if.”
“Obstetrics is most people’s kryptonite,” said Dr. Rachael Morris, associate professor of maternal fetal medicine at UMMC, who created and leads the training. “Unless you’re an obstetrician, even a well-trained E.R. physician or mid-level provider is going to tell you that you bring a pregnant lady into my E.R., and everyone’s going to freak out.”
The STORK Program’s half-day training includes lectures and simulations to change that dynamic. (STORK stands for Stabilizing OB and Neonatal Patients, Training for OB/Neonatal Emergencies, Outcome Improvements, Resource Sharing, and Kind Care for Vulnerable Families.) The training is funded with a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which also allows participants to receive a bag of supplies they can use during deliveries. The program is run by MCES, a division of UMMC that houses critical care transport services – including helicopter teams – and the state’s communications system for hospitals and first responders, Mississippi MED-COM.
“In Mississippi, infant and maternal mortality rates for people of color are among the highest in the nation and many families have to travel considerable distance to access care, creating obstetric emergencies,” said Wesley Prater, Kellogg Foundation program officer. “Our support of UMMC ensures providers across the state have the proper training to stabilize mothers and babies who need critical care.”
So far, about 150 people from around the state – a mix of registered nurses, physicians, medical residents, firefighters and paramedics – have completed the training over 11 classes since it launched in June. The team has 18 more trainings on the calendar.
With the state likely to tally an additional 5,000 births annually thanks to the abortion ban that took effect in July, obstetric services in the state are actually shrinking. The labor and delivery ward at Greenwood-Leflore Hospital closed in the fall. The Delta lost its only neonatal intensive care unit this summer. The NICU at Merit Health Central, which serves predominantly Black and low-income Jackson neighborhoods, also closed.
Already, more than half of the state’s counties are maternity care deserts: No labor and delivery ward. No OB-GYNs. No certified nurse midwives.
Women in rural areas face long drives to the nearest labor and delivery ward. Sometimes, that means they can’t make it there at all. Instead, they may give birth in an emergency room, at home while waiting for first responders to show up, or on the side of the road.
The STORK program staff hope training participants will be able to handle those situations effectively, saving lives along the way.
“These patients are going to be coming into really small hospitals and delivering or having problems,” said Dr. Tara Lewis, assistant professor of emergency medicine at UMMC and a former labor and delivery nurse.
Lewis joined the program to help tailor it to the needs of emergency room staff in small, rural hospitals.
“If providers don’t know how to make the diagnosis of what problem is going on, then they’re not going to know how to take care of them.”
PHOTOS: First responders trained on how to deliver babies
“You look like a really good uterus,” Morris told a burly Flowood firefighter and paramedic who had joined three of his colleagues to attend a STORK training at MCES on a recent Wednesday morning.
She had just given a presentation on managing hypertension and hemorrhage, and now it was time to demonstrate how to assist during a delivery.
The paramedic held a rubber baby as Morris demonstrated how a baby’s head will generally turn to one side as it leaves the birth canal, and how to use a finger to gently loosen the umbilical cord if it has looped around the neck.
In addition to the Flowood firefighters, attendees included a pediatric emergency room nurse at UMMC, a women’s health nurse in Meridian, and an emergency room nurse at Magee General Hospital who has assisted with three deliveries in the last year alone.
“That’s a lot considering it’s a small hospital with no labor and delivery resources,” she said.
There are regular STORK trainings at MCES open to people from all over the state. But the free training is also conducted at hospitals, so participants don’t have to travel and can see how to apply what they learn where they work.
After Morris finished her presentation, Emily Wells, a nurse practitioner and member of UMMC’s neonate transport team, explained how to care for newborns in the moments after birth. Since Jan. 1 of this year, the team has transported 390 babies to higher levels of care, and participated in 20 emergency room deliveries.
She described the recent delivery of a “rest stop baby,” who was born in a Toyota Camry en route to a hospital during a cold snap.
“Cold babies die,” she said, so the team had cranked up the heat inside the car and done everything they could to keep the baby warm.
In a hospital, the baby would be placed in an incubator. But in a pinch, any kind of plastic bag – maybe one that had been used to hold supplies now in use – could be placed around the baby’s body to conserve heat.

A woman had just delivered a baby at 26 weeks in her car, and now both had made it to the emergency room of their small-town hospital. She had delivered the placenta, too, but was still bleeding.
What should happen next? Half of the training participants gathered around their patient – a life-size mannequin lying on a hospital bed shouting “I’m bleeding” – and discussed what to do.
“At 26 weeks, I think the placenta abrupted,” Morris explained.
Blood trickled from the mannequin’s vagina, soaking a pad underneath her body. This was an important lesson, Leslie Cannon, now an educator with STORK after 25 years as a labor and delivery nurse, pointed out: In patients who aren’t pregnant, life-threatening hemorrhage often looks like a dramatic gush.
“Hemorrhage postpartum, it’s this trickle,” she said. “It’s a huge deal, because that trickle just keeps going.”
That’s important to keep in mind especially because it’s often not obvious when a woman is at serious risk because of bleeding.
“A young, healthy pregnant lady is going to look really good — until she’s about dead,” Morris had warned of hemorrhaging patients.
The students administered tranexamic acid to slow the bleeding.
As Morris had explained during her lecture, a student reached an arm into the uterus to sweep for pieces of retained placenta, which can cause life-threatening bleeding. (“It’s not a comfortable thing to do,” Morris warned.) Another student massaged the mannequin’s belly to cause the uterus to contract.
Eventually, the trickle slowed and stopped. Morris estimated the patient had lost a liter of blood.
Before everyone left, Morris and Wells gave out their cell phone numbers. Kace Ragan, project manager for STORK, explained that participants get supply bags that include QR codes they can scan to request refills — as long as the grant funding holds out — and report their experiences during deliveries.
Morris urged the attendees to text or call her with questions any time. Morris treats some of the most challenging pregnancies in the state and serves as obstetric COVID director at UMMC, meaning she’s spent the last two years witnessing devastating loss.
And yet, she told the training participants, she has “the luxury” of working in a hospital with plenty of resources and specialized training.
“Y’all are in the trenches doing things that I have to do, too, but with so much less,” she said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
1964: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was formed
April 26, 1964

Civil rights activists started the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the state’s all-white regular delegation to the Democratic National Convention.
The regulars had already adopted this resolution: “We oppose, condemn and deplore the Civil Rights Act of 1964 … We believe in separation of the races in all phases of our society. It is our belief that the separation of the races is necessary for the peace and tranquility of all the people of Mississippi, and the continuing good relationship which has existed over the years.”
In reality, Black Mississippians had been victims of intimidation, harassment and violence for daring to try and vote as well as laws passed to disenfranchise them. As a result, by 1964, only 6% of Black Mississippians were permitted to vote. A year earlier, activists had run a mock election in which thousands of Black Mississippians showed they would vote if given an opportunity.
In August 1964, the Freedom Party decided to challenge the all-white delegation, saying they had been illegally elected in a segregated process and had no intention of supporting President Lyndon B. Johnson in the November election.
The prediction proved true, with white Mississippi Democrats overwhelmingly supporting Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, who opposed the Civil Rights Act. While the activists fell short of replacing the regulars, their courageous stand led to changes in both parties.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Mississippi Today
Mississippi River flooding Vicksburg, expected to crest on Monday
Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer said Friday floodwaters from the Mississippi River, which have reached homes in and around Vicksburg, will likely persist until early May. Elfer estimated there areabout 15 to 20 roads underwater in the area.
“We’re about half a foot (on the river gauge) from a major flood,” he said. “But we don’t think it’s going to be like in 2011, so we can kind of manage this.”
The National Weather projects the river to crest at 49.5 feet on Monday, making it the highest peak at the Vicksburg gauge since 2020. Elfer said some residents in north Vicksburg — including at the Ford Subdivision as well as near Chickasaw Road and Hutson Street — are having to take boats to get home, adding that those who live on the unprotected side of the levee are generally prepared for flooding.



“There are a few (inundated homes), but we’ve mitigated a lot of them,” he said. “Some of the structures have been torn down or raised. There are a few people that still live on the wet side of the levee, but they kind of know what to expect. So we’re not too concerned with that.”
The river first reached flood stage in the city — 43 feet — on April 14. State officials closed Highway 465, which connects the Eagle Lake community just north of Vicksburg to Highway 61, last Friday.

Elfer said the areas impacted are mostly residential and he didn’t believe any businesses have been affected, emphasizing that downtown Vicksburg is still safe for visitors. He said Warren County has worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to secure pumps and barriers.
“Everybody thus far has been very cooperative,” he said. “We continue to tell people stay out of the flood areas, don’t drive around barricades and don’t drive around road close signs. Not only is it illegal, it’s dangerous.”
NWS projects the river to stay at flood stage in Vicksburg until May 6. The river reached its record crest of 57.1 feet in 2011.




This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Mississippi Today
With domestic violence law, victims ‘will be a number with a purpose,’ mother says
Joslin Napier. Carlos Collins. Bailey Mae Reed.
They are among Mississippi domestic violence homicide victims whose family members carried their photos as the governor signed a bill that will establish a board to study such deaths and how to prevent them.
Tara Gandy, who lost her daughter Napier in Waynesboro in 2022, said it’s a moment she plans to tell her 5-year-old grandson about when he is old enough. Napier’s presence, in spirit, at the bill signing can be another way for her grandson to feel proud of his mother.
“(The board) will allow for my daughter and those who have already lost their lives to domestic violence … to no longer be just a number,” Gandy said. “They will be a number with a purpose.”
Family members at the April 15 private bill signing included Ashla Hudson, whose son Collins, died last year in Jackson. Grandparents Mary and Charles Reed and brother Colby Kernell attended the event in honor of Bailey Mae Reed, who died in Oxford in 2023.
Joining them were staff and board members from the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the statewide group that supports shelters and advocated for the passage of Senate Bill 2886 to form a Domestic Violence Facility Review Board.
The law will go into effect July 1, and the coalition hopes to partner with elected officials who will make recommendations for members to serve on the board. The coalition wants to see appointees who have frontline experience with domestic violence survivors, said Luis Montgomery, public policy specialist for the coalition.
A spokesperson from Gov. Tate Reeves’ office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Establishment of the board would make Mississippi the 45th state to review domestic violence fatalities.
Montgomery has worked on passing a review board bill since December 2023. After an unsuccessful effort in 2024, the coalition worked to build support and educate people about the need for such a board.
In the recent legislative session, there were House and Senate versions of the bill that unanimously passed their respective chambers. Authors of the bills are from both political parties.
The review board is tasked with reviewing a variety of documents to learn about the lead up and circumstances in which people died in domestic violence-related fatalities, near fatalities and suicides – records that can include police records, court documents, medical records and more.
From each review, trends will emerge and that information can be used for the board to make recommendations to lawmakers about how to prevent domestic violence deaths.
“This is coming at a really great time because we can really get proactive,” Montgomery said.
Without a board and data collection, advocates say it is difficult to know how many people have died or been injured in domestic-violence related incidents.
A Mississippi Today analysis found at least 300 people, including victims, abusers and collateral victims, died from domestic violence between 2020 and 2024. That analysis came from reviewing local news stories, the Gun Violence Archive, the National Gun Violence Memorial, law enforcement reports and court documents.
Some recent cases the board could review are the deaths of Collins, Napier and Reed.
In court records, prosecutors wrote that Napier, 24, faced increased violence after ending a relationship with Chance Fabian Jones. She took action, including purchasing a firearm and filing for a protective order against Jones.
Jones’s trial is set for May 12 in Wayne County. His indictment for capital murder came on the first anniversary of her death, according to court records.
Collins, 25, worked as a nurse and was from Yazoo City. His ex-boyfriend Marcus Johnson has been indicted for capital murder and shooting into Collins’ apartment. Family members say Collins had filed several restraining orders against Johnson.
Johnson was denied bond and remains in jail. His trial is scheduled for July 28 in Hinds County.
He was a Jackson police officer for eight months in 2013. Johnson was separated from the department pending disciplinary action leading up to immediate termination, but he resigned before he was fired, Jackson police confirmed to local media.
Reed, 21, was born and raised in Michigan and moved to Water Valley to live with her grandparents and help care for her cousin, according to her obituary.
Kylan Jacques Phillips was charged with first degree murder for beating Reed, according to court records. In February, the court ordered him to undergo a mental evaluation to determine if he is competent to stand trial, according to court documents.
At the bill signing, Gandy said it was bittersweet and an honor to meet the families of other domestic violence homicide victims.
“We were there knowing we are not alone, we can travel this road together and hopefully find ways to prevent and bring more awareness about domestic violence,” she said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
-
News from the South - Florida News Feed6 days ago
Jim talks with Rep. Robert Andrade about his investigation into the Hope Florida Foundation
-
News from the South - Alabama News Feed5 days ago
Prayer Vigil Held for Ronald Dumas Jr., Family Continues to Pray for His Return | April 21, 2025 | N
-
Mississippi Today5 days ago
‘Trainwreck on the horizon’: The costly pains of Mississippi’s small water and sewer systems
-
News from the South - Texas News Feed5 days ago
Meteorologist Chita Craft is tracking a Severe Thunderstorm Warning that's in effect now
-
News from the South - Florida News Feed4 days ago
Trump touts manufacturing while undercutting state efforts to help factories
-
News from the South - Texas News Feed7 days ago
No. 3 Texas walks off No. 9 LSU again to capture crucial SEC softball series
-
News from the South - Arkansas News Feed6 days ago
As country grows more polarized, America needs unity, the ‘Oklahoma Standard,’ Bill Clinton says
-
News from the South - Virginia News Feed5 days ago
Taking video of military bases using drones could be outlawed | Virginia