Code blue and my first white hair.

I received my first white hair yesterday.

I was sitting in one of my foster parent classes entitled, “The impact of trauma on children”. I love these classes. The content is intriguing and our instructors are not only great teachers but Christians as well. One of our instructors is a very engaging social worker from DCS and the other instructor is a foster parent of many years as well as a pastor of a local church. We were cruising through the course material when all of a sudden, from the back of the room, a gurgling sound was heard. The teacher was showing a powerpoint and stopped at the loud noise. As she turned on the lights I looked back towards the sound and saw one of the students had slumped over in his seat. The man's girlfriend was trying to shake him awake but he was not responding. Someone asked her what was wrong and she was obviously frightened as she cried out, “I don’t know!".
Immediately I went over to him. As I pulled him upright by his shoulders, his face came up and I saw his face had turned blue. Someone gasped out loud, “He's not breathing!". The man's eyes rolled back and spit drooled from his mouth. “He’s choking!”, someone else yelled. This is when I sprang into action.

My Coast Guard medical training kicked in and I got behind the unconscious man. I wrapped my arms around his torso and turned my right fist so that the knuckle of my thumb was pointing inward above his navel. The man was in his early 40‘s and probably weighted around 200 pounds. The was still half sitting in his chair as I got into position behind him. Sharply pulling my fist into his stomach and up towards his chest I started the Heimlech. I did this for about a minute, his head flopping back and forth with each forceful yank. “Come on buddy!" I said to him as I pulled. But nothing was happening and I needed to change tactics. “We need to get him on his back”, I said to the class. I pulled him out of his chair and onto the floor. He was still completely unconscious as I positioned myself over him and began CPR. I locked my elbows and began to pump his chest, counting out my compressions, “1,2,3,4...” hoping something would dislodge from his throat. At this point I yelled to a bystander to call 911. I then switched doing CPR with another classmate and began to investigate the unconscious man's airway. I tilting his head and lifted his chin, ensuring his tongue would not block his airway. Suddenly I heard a forceful intake of breath, the man's body sucking in much needed oxygen. Unfortunately there were no following breaths. No matter how we positioned him, he would not breath normally. At this point I knew he wasn't choking. If he was able to take in a big breath, there wasn’t something like a piece of candy completely blocking his airway. Another panicked student cried out, “He needs oxygen!”. I decided at this point to try mouth to mouth. I saw what appeared to be flecks of vomit on his mouth and hastily wiped it away as I squeezed his nose and blew into his mouth. The air went nowhere, escaping back out of his mouth with a whoosh.  I sat up frustrated, tasting something bad on my tongue. I realized we had to get a better airway fast. I remembered I had my combat medical kit in my car and ran out of the class to grab it. I raced through the parking lot, grabbed my kit and ran back inside, passing a young girl in the parking lot who was praying on her knees. I got back into the classroom and flung my kit onto a nearby table. Another student was performing CPR as I unzipped the kit and grabbed an NPA. For those who don't know, an NPA (nasopharyngeal airway) is a breathing tube that is inserted through the nose and goes all the way down into the throat. This is used when a patient becomes unconscious and the muscles in the jaw relax, which can allow the tongue to slide back and block the airway. I ripped open the packaging and grabbed the green curved tube. I slathered the tube with clear gel, ensuring it would slide down the man's nasal passage. I then carefully slid the tube into his nose and down into his throat until it was fully inserted. The end of the NPA is flared so it cannot continue down the nose and it looked like the end of a small green trumpet was stuck in this man's nose. Thankfully, at that point, the man began to take ragged breaths.

About a minute after having inserted the NPA, the ambulance arrived. The lead paramedic came in and knelt by the man’s head and asked who “dropped in the NPA”. I gave the paramedics a brief overview of what we'd done as they began to care for the man. They put a mask over his nose and mouth and squeezed an attached oxygen bag, forcing air into the NPA and down into his throat. After a couple more minutes of oxygen therapy they then placed him on a stretcher and that is when he woke up. His eyes fluttered open and a paramedic leaned into his face and asked him how he felt. “Great!” he replied with a raspy voice. That one reply broke the tension in the room. People began laughing once they saw that the man had not sustained any lasting damage. I let out a relieved laugh, knowing he was now going to be okay. They rolled him down towards the parking lot as his girlfriend followed.

As the paramedics packed up their equipment one of them called me over and asked if I wanted another NPA. “Sure!” I replied as I followed him to the back of the ambulance. As we walked through the parking lot I tasted something bad in my mouth and quickly ran over to my car. I gurgled some hot water from a bottle that I had left in my car and spat out the nasty taste, saying a quick prayer for my health as I met the paramedics at their truck. The paramedics thanked me and shook my hand as they handed over a new NPA. I have to say, I felt pretty good walking back into class.
One of the instructors came up to me, and thanked me for the work I'd done. She laughed when she found out that I worked in a hospital emergency room. I had actually just finished a shift that day and had almost not come to class because I was so tired!
After our instructors made sure everyone was okay we proceeded with the class. Once I got home I was washing my face and as I looked up into the mirror I noticed one shockingly white hair poking out from the top of my head. I was honestly more disturbed by that white hair than I was with the emergency! I’m amazed at how often I have had to use my medical training since leaving the military. I'm thankful that God has put me in the right place at the right time and I’m thankful for the opportunity to help people.

I'll be sharing more about what all is going on my life but today I thought I’d just share an interesting story. Until next time! Psalm 19:14