June 2023
Veronick
Symons
,
BSN, RN
Pediatric Emergency Department
New York Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital
New York
,
NY
United States
Veronick and another nurse peeked into the driver’s seat and saw that an adult male was blue. Luckily, she was able to open the door and started compressions with the other individual.
Veronick was walking up the hill from the parking lot to report for her shift in the MSCHONY Pediatric Emergency Room. Oddly enough, there was a truck blocking the loading dock and a car was honking at the truck because it was illegally parked. By chance, Veronick and another nurse peeked into the driver’s seat and saw that an adult male was blue. Luckily, she was able to open the door and started compressions with the other individual. An adult cardiac fellow was coincidentally walking by and saw what was happening. He quickly jumped in to help. Veronick switched out compressions with the other nurse and instructed the cardiac fellow to lower the seat to get the man as supine as possible. Veronick noticed that the back seat was wrapped in plastic, she quickly removed a piece of the plastic and made a barrier to give rescue breaths. She managed to flag another employee down and instructed them to run through the ambulance bay to alert security that a cardiac arrest was ongoing and help was needed. Because of her efforts, the patient was transported from the car to the pediatric trauma room, where they intubated the patient, achieved ROSC, and transferred the patient to the ICU. After debriefing post arrest, Veronick discovered she wasn’t actually scheduled for a shift and reported to work by mistake! It truly was meant to be that Veronick , valiantly saved this man’s life.