A California nurse had a heartwarming reunion with a child she cared for nearly three decades ago.
Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital shared the serendipitous reunion story on Facebook, and the powerful tale gained much attention.
Nurse Vilma Wong has been working for 32 years. A recent chance encounter exemplifies the enduring bond that nurses like Wong can develop with their patients.
Twenty-eight years ago, Wong was the primary nurse for a newborn urgently brought to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) after his mother’s emergency cesarean section.,
His name was Brandon Seminatore, and the tiny baby weighed only two pounds and six ounces.
He spent 40 days in the unit, and Wong helped him grow to five pounds and two ounces.
The premature baby was finally able to leave the hospital with his parents. But unlike most children, one day, years later, he returned.
Wong had never left, and earlier that month, while working a shift, she saw a new face in scrubs near one of the incubators.
She asked the man for his name. “Brandon Seminatore,” he replied. The nurse said the surname sounded familiar.
“I kept asking him where he was from, and he told me he was from San Jose, California, and indeed, he was a premature baby born in our hospital,” Wong said.
“Then I became very suspicious because I remember being the primary nurse for a baby with the same last name.”
She was shocked that he remembered, especially considering she cares for so many babies in the unit.
He knew Wong’s name because she and fellow nurse Kas Pilon were often talked about in their family: it’s clear why.
He had always known who she was, but meeting her face to face was “surreal” for him.
His mother had urged him to find both nurses during his month-long rotation in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.
“They were wonderful nurses,” said his mother, Laura Seminatore. “They helped ease many of our fears.”
The young man immediately messaged his parents when he and Wong reunited in the neonatal intensive care unit.
He had done a month-long rotation in the neonatal intensive care unit last year but didn’t know if both nurses still worked there.
Wong, now 54, isn’t retiring anytime soon. She said she loves her job and has no plans to retire.
“She cares deeply for her patients, as evidenced by being able to remember a patient’s name almost three decades later,” Seminaratore said.
