RB & MB nominated Maggie Szotko for the DAISY Award because of her dogged efforts to have a CT scan performed on RB on Monday. Maggie made several attempts to insert the port for the scan. When she was not successful, she enlisted the help of four colleagues. They finally achieved what they thought were two adequate ports. One in each arm. RB was sent down to scan. I, MB, went with him and waited an hour in the hall of the emergency room. The technician said the ports would not work and sent him back to the floor.

When Maggie saw that he had returned to the room without the scan, she was adamant that the scan needed to occur that afternoon. She again created a port, a little lower than the other two that had been completed. She accompanied my husband for the CT scan. She waited with him for an hour. When the technician said the scan could not be performed, Maggie said, “Yes, it can be done.” It was finally completed sometime after 4pm.

If not for Maggie that scan would not have been completed that afternoon. It was a critical scan because it showed that my husband had blood clots in both lungs. He had been waiting most of the day for this scan to be done. He was growing sicker every day because he was being treated for pneumonia.

We literally feel that Maggie saved his life, or at least kept him from enduring more days of breathing difficulties, not eating and growing weaker. When we told the cardiologist what had happened, he readily concurred that this nurse's actions were worthy of the DAISY Award!

A local doctor once said, “Nursing care makes or breaks a hospital. Doctor’s orders are worthless without a great nurse.”