Emergency plan helps clinic staff save life of local man
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff writer
In a world full of cold, hard facts, there is one that Julee Scherrer learned recently while working at Aurora Burlington Clinic.
“I understood from ER personnel that only 16 percent of people survive something like this,” said Scherrer. “This gentleman was so lucky.”
“Like this” was an episode of ventricular fibrillation, known in the medical world as “V-Fib.” “This gentleman” was 82-year-old Wayne Tschudy, who collapsed at the clinic March 1 following an annual physical.
What happened when Tschudy collapsed was a combination of careful preparation, medical expertise – and maybe just a little bit of luck thrown in for good measure.
“It was simple for me. I just passed out,” said Tschudy, who is back at home after having a new pacemaker implanted a week after his collapse.
“I was pressing the button on the elevator to go downstairs.”
The next thing he knew, “they were waking me up in the ER.”
What Tschudy missed was a carefully coordinated effort – that was two years in the making, with several bystanders, nurses and clinic staff all playing a part.
What’s perhaps even more incredible is how that coordinated effort – planned for and put into action by the “Clinic Code Committee” – came about due to a less-than-stellar response in another emergency.
The beginning
In 2009, late in the year, clinic staff members were forced to deal with an emergency situation. Nurse Krista Koch doesn’t remember the details, but she does recall what it felt like afterward.
“We had the equipment and stuff in place for emergencies, but it wasn’t readily accessible,” she said. “It wasn’t organized.
“The patient did fine. (But) it brought out the need for us to step up our game a little bit.”
The Clinic Code Committee was formed in January of 2010.
“We really sat down (and asked a lot of questions),” Koch said. “What kind of equipment are we going to need on hand and what are our expectations of our staff?”
The committee devised a plan, one that got staff where they were need, equipment where it could be easily accessible – and also stressed a professional, calm response to any incident.
Since the formation of the committee, there have been about 20 incidents. Staff is now paged to the site of the incident. A code is called to get medical staff where they belong, and equipment is at the ready.
The response
On the morning of March 1, it all came together.
When Tschudy – who was on the second floor finishing up an annual physical after his wife, Betty, had done the same – collapsed, the customer service representatives at the desk immediately yelled for help.
A layperson – Koch wasn’t sure who – immediately went to help Tschudy, and nurse Pamela Sirkman came out of the pediatrics unit to help.
Within moments, the two had begun CPR. An overhead page announced a “Code Four.” About 20 different people showed up – including walk-in clinic nurse Scherrer with a device called an AED, an automatic external defibrillator.
“She just slapped on the pads and was ready to go,” Koch said. “I was very impressed with how adept she was with handling the equipment.”
An AED automatically analyzes a patient in cardiac arrest, and determines whether a shock can and should be delivered. In Tschudy’s case, the machine called for a shock, it was delivered – and the 82-year-old immediately went back to a normal (called “sinus”) rhythm.
The whole incident, from the time Tschudy collapsed to the time the shock was delivered, took less than three minutes. It was about six minutes before he arrived in the emergency room.
“He had a life-sustaining pulse before we were even on the way to the emergency room,” Koch said.
When she returned to the waiting room on the second floor a bit later, Koch was amazed.
“The waiting room was functioning as if nothing had even happened,” she said. “People who walked in five minutes later would’ve had no idea this man had just died in our waiting room and was brought back to life.”
The aftermath
In short, two years of hard work came together perfectly.
“I’m actually proud of everybody’s progress,” Scherrer said. “Everyone’s come together to improve themselves in an emergency situation.”
Koch agreed.
“The people did exactly what we expected them to do,” she said. “We saw that there was a need. We wanted to make sure we knew how to respond.”
And when a situation occurred, all of the mock drills and staff training came together perfectly.
“When you can change a person’s life, when you can change the outcome, there’s no better reward,” Koch said.
Tschudy, now back home and continuing on with his life, couldn’t agree more.
“I think they were great,” he said. “I think they were prepared. I think they were fast, very efficient. I couldn’t have been in better hands.”
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