October 2017
Carol
Lalinde
,
RN
Orthopedics
Baptist Hospital of Miami
Miami
,
FL
United States

 

 

 

This summer Carol started her vacation with her daughter to visit family out of the country. As Carol and her daughter were checking in at the counter and presenting passports, Carol heard in a far distance, "Help, Help!" Carol looked around and saw that no one seemed in distress and the counter attendant was not concerned. She proceeded to complete her check-in process with the attendant. As Carol and her daughter were walking over to the security line, an airport security guard was controlling human traffic and was advising people to keep moving.
Carol felt that something was telling her to look back at what was going on behind this security guard. She noticed a man on the floor and his wife was leaning over him. The man's face was blue and there was urine on the floor under him. Carol noticed an airport employee next to the man on the phone with rescue describing the man's condition. Carol immediately jumped into action and ran over to the man and asked everyone there for the location of the AED. No one was able to tell her the location or going to get one. Carol looked around, spotted the AED and ran to get it. She checked the man's pulse and felt no pulse. She then started doing compressions and at the same time yelling at the police officers for help.
She then placed the pads of the AED on the man and a shock was advised. Carol yelled for everyone to stay clear and proceeded to shock the man. People were screaming as the man's body jerked in response to the shock.
In a distance, Carol's daughter was recording the scene on her mobile phone. A woman next to Carol's daughter asked, "Who is that lady?" Her daughter responded very proudly by saying, "She's my mom, a nurse at Baptist."
Right after the shock, the man gasped and had a pulse. At that time, the rescue crew arrived and took over the situation.
Carol gave her report to the police officer. Carol cannot help but think that if she had not stopped and looked back while walking over to the security area, the man would have possibly died.