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Nursing
Three Off-work Nurses Come to Rescue in Emergencies
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Sep 29, 2015 - 10:13:00 AM
(HealthNewsDigest.com) - Many patients at hospitals everywhere think of their nurses as heroes because of the health-restoring care and personal kindness they provide as part of their everyday work. Sometimes, nurses are heroes while off the job as well.
In the past year, three nurses at Rush University Medical Center have come to people's aid in emergency situations, saving lives and, in one incident, calming a frightened child. These are their stories.
Janet Haw, RN, BSN, MBA, was working out at her health club on a day off shortly before Christmas when she suddenly heard a friend yelling for her. Looking over, Haw saw one of the club's exercise instructors lying on the ground. A Rush nurse for more than 30 years and the director of interventional services, she came to his aid immediately.
Haw and another nurse, Jennifer Sulo, quickly began performing CPR on the man, who was having a heart attack. Haw worked on the man's airway and assisted a club employee in using a defibrillator to apply an electrical charge to restore a regular heartbeat. Sulo, a former Rush nurse, performed chest compressions.
"Everything just kicked in like it's supposed to," Haw recalls. "We worked really well as a team. But I will say it felt like a very long time before the paramedics arrived."
The instructor, whom Haw actually knew, ended up undergoing triple-bypass surgery and has since made a full recovery.
Haw's immediate response is even more remarkable given that her managerial role has kept her from providing direct patient care for years, and the incident was the first time she ever had witnessed a life-threatening event outside of a hospital.
For her, the biggest lesson from the experience is the importance of CPR training. "The more we can encourage and teach CPR classes to the public, the better," she says. "Chest compressions and early defibrillation are so important."
CPR training was crucial as well when Darice Bohne came to the aid of a woman who collapsed at a festival in far west suburban Oswego in June. The coronary intensive care nurse at Rush came upon the woman as Bohne was leaving the festival with her husband.
With no paramedics or police around, Bohne rushed in. "At first the woman had a pulse, but then it was gone," she remembers. "I immediately began CPR."
The woman had suffered sudden cardiac death - a potentially fatal condition caused when the electrical system to the heart breaks down. The incident seemed to last forever for Bohne, even though it only took a few minutes.
"I just went into motion, as I was trained," Bohne remembers. "I told myself that I could do this, that I knew what I was doing."
Even when the police showed up with a defibrillator, Bohne insisted on staying until paramedics arrived. They got there just as Bohne was about to apply the defibrillator pads herself, and she let them take over.
Because of Bohne's quick action, the woman suffered no brain damage. She was in the hospital for only four days and received a defibrillator in her chest to help keep her heartbeat regular. Bohne visited her in the hospital, where they officially met for the first time and cried together over their shared connection.
Bohne credits her Rush training and the Rush nursing culture for enabling her to leap to the woman's aid. "You go into health care to help people, and being a Rush nurse means we have an innate confidence," she explains. "We know we can help and provide the best care for our patients."
Time seemed to move in slow motion for Hannah Walsh, RN, after the Rush nurse saw a town car flip in the air just a little ahead of her as she was driving alone on the Indiana Toll Road on her way back to Chicago from Ohio in mid-July.
The car had been heading in the traffic-free eastbound lanes near Derry, Indiana. The driver had fallen asleep, and the car had struck the concrete median, lifting it into Walsh's side of traffic.
Walsh left her car and ran to help. She found the driver somewhat alert, and a man, woman and young girl in the back seat.
"The man looked the most hurt," Walsh remembers. "I told him and the woman not to move, because they could have had neck injuries. I was able to grab the little girl. She was bleeding from broken glass. They were all bleeding from glass."
Walsh removed the girl from the wreckage and comforted her until the emergency responders arrived and took control. Assuming Walsh was the girl's mother, they put them in the ambulance together. By that point, they were hanging tightly to each other, it would have been hard to separate them.
Walsh eventually learned that the 5-year-old girl was with her aunt and uncle, who had hired the car to take the girl with them on their annual Chicago shopping trip from their home in Indiana. The girl needed stitches due to severe cuts and was returned safely to her family.
The aunt suffered a broken clavicle, and emergency responders needed to use the Jaws of Life to remove her from the car, but she has recovered. The uncle was severely wounded in the crash and died a month later from multiple traumatic injuries.
"When I come to work, I know there is a chance something may go wrong with a patient," Walsh reflects. "When you're driving, you're not thinking that way. I've never seen trauma. It is amazing how your instincts kick in."
The nurses' quick, unhesitant response reflects that character of health care workers in general, according to Patty Nedved, interim chief nursing officer and associate vice president for professional nursing practice at Rush. "It's part of our DNA as health care clinicians to come to the aid of someone when they're in distress, without thinking twice," says Nedved, whom neighbors often turn to for health advice.
"We're educated to provide care for other in need of assistance, whether it's at the workplace or in a social situation," Nedved says. "These nurses are heroes in the eyes of the community, but in their own eyes, they're saying ‘it's just what I do.'"
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