Baby Ridge Needs Your Help: A Heartfelt Journey

My beautiful grandson, Ridge Joseph, was born on April 16, 2025, at 36 weeks, in Casper, Wyoming. After birth, he was having difficulty breathing; the medical staff believed this was due to immature lungs. He was put on a BiPAP machine, and this was not helping. They made the decision to intubate him and fly him from Casper, Wyoming to Ogden, Utah for further treatment. After being evaluated by the NICU staff and medical team, it was discovered that it wasn’t necessarily his lungs that were not fully developed, but that he had a very rare heart defect, Unicuspid aortic valve stenosis. He was then flown from Ogden, Utah to Primary Children’s in Salt Lake City, Utah as he required a pediatric cardiac team.

This was devastating news to his amazing parents, especially because they were stuck in Wyoming while their son was in Utah due to road closures.

He will require surgery on his heart in order to fix the defect in the coming days/weeks. He will be in the NICU for up to 6 to 8 weeks, maybe longer.

As you can imagine, the financial toll this is taking on his parents, with two life flights in three days, and extended NICU care along with living and traveling expenses while in Utah.

We would be forever grateful if you could share this and pray for this family.

Thank you so very much!