On Thursday, Nov. 29, at approximately 9:30 a.m. in Rhinebeck, Katherine Mester, 37, of Tivoli exited a Mobil station on Route 9G trying to make a left turn in a Jeep Cherokee, and was struck in the driver’s side door by a van traveling northbound. Mester, who was 34 to 35 weeks pregnant, was transported to St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, suffering from a serious head injury and internal trauma.
St. Francis is the only level-two trauma center in the Hudson Valley, level one being the most serious. After about two and a half hours of surgery performed by a team led by surgeon Dr. José Baez, Mester succumbed to her injuries. She was pronounced dead at 1:07 p.m. Miraculously the St. Francis team, with help from across town, was able to save the baby, named Isabel.
“We always try to save the life of the mother first,” said St. Francis spokesman Larry Hughes. At the same time, however, St. Francis put out a call to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) at Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie, which is a level-three trauma center but has the only NICU between Albany and New York City and is always on call.
“The miracle to this is that (Mester) held on as long as she did, because if she had died early on at the scene or on the operating table the baby could have been deprived of oxygen,” said Hughes. “As it was, the baby needed some resuscitation. This was a great cooperative effort between the two hospitals and the staff here was deeply affected by it.”
Baby Isabel “is in stable condition with a good prognosis,” according to Theresa Mulkins, director of public relations at Vassar. The van’s driver, Robert L. Day, 46, of Saugerties, was transported to Northern Dutchess Hospital with minor back and neck pain. He has not been charged and the state police are describing this as a tragic accident.