Sara England was putting together Ghostbusters costumes for Halloween when she noticed her baby wasn’t doing well.

Her 3-month-old son, Amari Vaca, had undergone open-heart surgery two months before, so she called his cardiologist, who recommended getting him checked out. England assigned Amari’s grandparents to trick-or-treat duty with his three older siblings and headed to the local emergency room.

Once England and the baby arrived at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, she said, doctors could see Amari was struggling to breathe and told her that he needed specialized care immediately, from whichever of two major hospitals in the region had an opening first.

Even as they talked, Amari was declining rapidly, his mother said. Doctors put a tube down his throat and used a bag to manually push air into his lungs for over an hour to keep his oxygen levels up until he was stable enough to switch to a ventilator.