A patient who became unresponsive at a routine doctor appointment received help from caregivers who were trained in CPR and ready to take the appropriate actions.
Carrie Hanni, RN, from McKay-Dee’s Rheumatology Clinic, says the moment she learned from Rheumatologist Jameel Youssef, MD, that the patient had stopped responding and had a weak pulse, she rushed to the patient’s room, along with her coworker Bambi Clark, RN.
“The patient hadn’t been feeling well that morning,” says Carrie. “He was in an exam room with Dr. Youssef when he began to pass out. Bambi and I rushed into the room and helped transfer him to the floor. Dr. Youssef rechecked his pulse again and didn’t find one. Bambi also checked and couldn’t find a pulse and he wasn’t breathing. That’s when we began compressions and a Code Blue was called.”
Carrie says they started CPR very fast and worked together like clockwork with their instincts kicking in, thanks to the quarterly RQI trainings. All caregivers in clinical settings take the American Heart Association’s Resuscitation Quality Improvement Program (RQI) each quarter, which provides simulated training to help maintain CPR and basic life support skills.
“I give our quarterly RQI trainings huge credit for how they teach us,” says Carrie. “We’d done the training as a group a few weeks before. It helped make our actions with this patient quick and instinctual.”
Carrie says after about ten compressions the patient took a huge breath and became alert. “From there, he was a bit confused for a moment and asked us what he was doing on the floor. He was ready to get up as if nothing had happened,” she says.
Miranda Hatch, a medical assistant, says she’s extremely grateful the patient was in the clinic at that moment. “We hadn’t seen this patient in months and had finally talked him into coming back for a visit,” she says. “You get to know your patients and during this visit I could tell something was wrong. His color was a bit off and he wasn’t joking with us as usual.”
After the patient returned to consciousness, he was taken to be evaluated at the emergency room and released a few hours later. Brady Sanderson, RN unit educator in the McKay-Dee ED, says, “This patient was able to get care quickly and appropriately because of the actions and preparedness of these caregivers.”
“I’m proud of our team for how quickly they reacted and their competency in a situation we don’t see often in our clinic,” says Dr. Youssef. “Everyone acted with urgency and I’m so appreciative of our caregivers and the trainings that made a difference.”