In Safe Hands: How OU Health Helped Baby Delilah Heal from a Traumatic Brain Injury

The morning started like countless others in the Carcamo’s Del City, Oklahoma, household. Six-month-old Delilah rocked on her knees as her sister Layla jumped on the bed. In one heart-stopping moment, as Layla bounced, Delilah lunged forward at just the wrong moment and tumbled off the edge. The thud of her tiny head hitting the floor seared into her parents’ minds.

“When a baby that young hits her head, you take them to the hospital regardless,” said Laken Carcamo, Delilah’s mother.

The events that followed, from initial assessment to lifesaving surgery, challenged Delilah’s care teams and underscored why the Level I Trauma Center at OU Health University of Oklahoma Medical Center is the state’s leading trauma facility.

A Mother’s Intuition

After another local hospital examined Delilah and then sent her home, something gnawed at Laken. Her baby had stopped crying — but a mother knows when something isn’t right.

“I just felt wrong leaving [the hospital]. I felt like something was off,” Laken said. Her instincts proved right. At home, Delilah refused to eat and screamed inconsolably. When she finally slept, Laken stood watching her. Then Delilah woke and immediately vomited.

Laken rushed back to the hospital, insisting something was wrong. The baby’s head felt soft, almost mushy. This time, the scan revealed a massive epidural hematoma — blood pooling between Delilah’s skull and the brain’s covering, creating life-threatening pressure.

Before telling the parents, the hospital had already called an ambulance. Delilah was being raced to Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health, the region’s only pediatric Level I Trauma Center.

Every Second Matters

Oklahoma Children’s pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Nicholas Sader, M.D., MSc, FRCSC, FAANS, assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, received the call describing a large epidural hematoma in a rapidly deteriorating infant.

“I said we have to get her here as fast as possible,” Dr. Sader said. His next calls triggered the coordinated response that defines Level I trauma care. The surgical and anesthesiology teams mobilized, while an anesthesiologist ran to the emergency room to wait for their young patient.

When Delilah arrived, a full team stood ready. They knew every second would count if they wanted to save the little girl’s life.

“She was quite sick. She had a blown pupil,” Dr. Sader said, indicating dangerous brain pressure. “Because of the teamwork, we got to the OR very, very quickly.”

The Longest Hours

For Laken and Dorian Carcamo, Delilah’s father, the trauma bay felt surreal.

“There were so many people. I felt like [there were] 100 people around us,” Laken said. “They said they were taking her into surgery, and that we needed to say goodbye to our daughter.”

Dr. Sader performed an emergency craniotomy, removing a portion of Delilah’s skull to remove the blood clot the size of an orange, which was a massive bleed for an infant. A brain bleed this big in a 6-month-old is especially dangerous because at that young age, her blood volume is not large, roughly the volume of three cans of soda. Given the severity and swelling concerns, Dr. Sader initially left the piece of skull off.

The hours after surgery stretched endlessly. Delilah emerged with a drain in her head and a breathing tube. Her parents waited, not knowing which way she would turn.

“That was the worst moment of both our lives,” Laken said quietly.

In the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), while monitoring Delilah, nurses turned their attention to her shattered parents. They never left their daughter’s side and were not eating or caring for their own needs.

“As they were taking care of Delilah, they were also checking in on us,” Laken said. “Nurses brought food and explained every monitor, every medication, every sign of progress.”

“The nurses did double work,” Dorian said. “They weren’t just working on Delilah. … They were checking on all of us, making sure we were as comfortable as you can be in that situation.”

Then something extraordinary began happening. Against the odds, Delilah started fighting back faster than anyone expected. The breathing tube came out because she was breathing independently. The drain was removed. What typically takes weeks was happening in just days.

Postoperative imaging showed no stroke, no persistent swelling, nor any of the complications they’d feared most. Her recovery was so swift that it changed the surgical timeline.

“Because there was no persistent swelling, we were able to go back to the operating room and put the bone back on,” Dr. Sader said.

The second surgery, initially expected weeks or months later, happened just five days after the first. But the doctors did something else that day — something that had nothing to do with neurosurgery.

“He saved all her hair from the first surgery because he knew that was her first haircut,” Laken said, her voice breaking. “He put it in a bag that said ‘Miracle’ on it. In something so chaotic, he thought about us.”

The PICU nurses who didn’t have Delilah on their shift would stop by to check on her. They all loved her, Dorian recalled.

“When [the nurses] saw her after her second surgery, they couldn’t believe this was the same kid that came in that night,” Dorian said.

They Were the Miracle Makers

Today, mere months after her life-threatening injury, Delilah crawls, stands, and bobs with endless energy. Only the scar circling her head remains as evidence.

“You’d never know,” Dorian said. "They told us whatever she was meant to be in life, she is going to be that. It literally had no effect on her. It’s a miracle. The surgeons were the miracle makers. They made her into the miracle. We can never say thank you enough.”

Dr. Sader views it through the lens of Level I trauma capabilities and the skill of the entire team at OU Health.

“Having the infrastructure to bring kids here quickly, be assessed by multiple teams, and get to the OR fast allows the best possible chance for recovery,” he said. “The faster we relieve that pressure, the better the outcome.”

The coordination that saved Delilah — from the emergency physician’s call and the anesthesiologist running to meet her to the neurosurgeon’s immediate response and the PICU’s family-centered care — exemplifies what sets OU Health apart.

“The teamwork here at Oklahoma Children’s was remarkable,” Dr. Sader said. “From anesthesiology, emergency medicine, neurosurgery, trauma team to the nursing and OR staff, it was truly remarkable.”

Hope for Every Family

The Carcamos lived every parent’s nightmare. But they also discovered that when seconds count, when a child needs a miracle, OU Health stands ready.

“We want to give families hope,” Dorian said. “There is hope.”

That hope lives in Oklahoma’s only pediatric Level I Trauma Center, where specialists stand ready around the clock. It lives in the split-second coordination that turns impossible odds into miraculous outcomes.

“Her future looks as bright as it was before,” Dr. Sader said. “She has no deficits from that injury.”

For other Oklahoma families facing their darkest hours, Delilah’s story delivers a powerful message: At OU Health, miracle workers clock in every day, ready to give another family what the Carcamos received — their child’s future back.

OU Health, Oklahoma’s only academic health system, and its emergency rooms deliver prompt care for illness, injuries, or other immediate health problems. Not all hospitals offer the specially trained staff, advanced technology, 24/7 access, or other requirements needed to provide the lifesaving, high level of trauma and injury care found at a verified Level I trauma center.

When you need emergency care, choose OU Health’s emergency rooms in Oklahoma City, including OU Health University of Oklahoma Medical Center and at Oklahoma Children’s OU Health; the emergency room at OU Health Edmond Medical Center, where you’ll appreciate the distinctive trauma and emergency support for people age 65 and older; or OU Health’s emergency room/urgent care locations across the OKC metro.

Learn more about emergency care and Oklahoma’s leading Level I Trauma Center