Jazmin Leon-Quiroz helped plan Javier's funeral.
Jazmin Leon-Quiroz was on her way to church when she got a phone call that sent her in another direction to go help a long-time patient in need. When she arrived at the patient’s home, the police were there and the funeral home was preparing to pick up his body.
The phone call Jazmin received was from the man’s sister, Elodia Astudillo, who was calling from Mexico. She told Jazmin her brother, Javier Astudillo, who’d been an Intermountain caregiver working in the cafeteria at Park City Hospital, had just died. He was on long-term dialysis and had been dealing with other chronic conditions. Elodia asked Jazmin if she could help the family with funeral details and help make arrangements to have her brother’s body shipped back to his family in Mexico.
Jazmin, a medical assistant, had helped Javier many times when he’d come to the Park City Round Valley Clinic. In fact, once she and two other caregivers had rallied to save his life when he was ill and couldn’t call an ambulance. She’d given her personal phone to Javier and Elodi so they would have it, if they ever needed help. With his passing, she knew the family would have to make all the arrangements from afar and would face some daunting language barriers.
Yracema Wiland, a patient service representative, helped save Javier's life at one point.
Amy Arriola, physician assistant, says Jazmin proved a valuable friend to the family.
“She helped get everything set up to get the body sent home, and she was available to the sisters to help with all the questions they had,” Amy says. “And she did this, not just while she was at work, but over the weekend and on her time off work.”
Speaking through a translator, Elodia said it was difficult for them to make the arrangements because of language barriers and Jazmin’s help was critical.
“She helped me with every detail until the very end, including the church services,” Elodia says
Jazmin says she put herself in the family’s shoes and knew they could really use her help during this difficult time. She says she called the consulate in Mexico and learned what needed to happen to transport the man’s body back home and worked with the funeral home in Utah to help plan the funeral.
Amy Arriola, physician's assistant, says Jazmin genuinely cares about their patients.
“She’s an amazing medical assistant,” Amy says. “She was a care guide for a long time and even though she just recently moved into a medical assistant position, she knows all my patients. She’s great with patients; she listens, she helps take care of them, and she goes a little bit above and beyond in general. But in this case, she did even more.”
It wasn’t the first time Jazmin went the extra mile for Javier. One time, about four years ago, Javier called into the Park City clinic telling them he was calling in sick for the day because he didn’t feel well. He had the wrong number and he was obviously disoriented because he was having trouble answering questions, says Yracema Wiland, the patient service representative who took the call.
She called Javier’s care manager, at the time, who was Jeanette Walker, who’s now a nurse practitioner at Utah Valley Internal Medicine, to tell her she thought Javier was in trouble.
“We lost our phone connection and I tried to call him back,” Yracema says. “I tried to call him a million times and he couldn’t answer. It was really stressful.”
Jeanette says she went looking for him but the address they had for him was wrong because he’d moved. At the time, Jazmin was on leave but Jeanette reached her at home and Jazmin was able to tell her which building he lived in but not, at first, which apartment was his.
“I was knocking on every single door trying to find where he lived,” Jeanette says. “I was frantic, trying to talk to anybody who knew him and knew where he lived.”
Jazmin was eventually able to dig up his apartment number and Jeanette went there, knocked, and got no answer.
“I just walked in, and I found Javier in his bedroom, lying on his bed, and he was having a very difficult time breathing,” she says.
An ambulance arrived and when they got him to the hospital, they realized they’d have to intubate Javier and then he had a heart attack, Jeanette says. It took them about seven minutes, but they were able to revive him. He was flown to Intermountain Medical Center where he recovered within about five days and was released.
Elodia says she’s grateful for Jeanette and that Javier had good friends who supported him at Intermountain, including his boss Gregoria Taboada, a food services specialist.
Jazmin says four Intermountain caregivers attended Javier’s funeral.
“We really cared about him all these years that he was our patient,” she says. “The whole team cared about him.”
Jeanette said she just felt she had to attend his viewing.
“There are some people who just touch you in a way and you know that’s what you need to do,” she says. “I always felt that connection with him and his family, and I knew that for me to have closure I needed to go and pay my respects to him and his family.”