She "died twice" but Kaiser Permanente fast action brought her back

Kaiser Permanente Mountain View member in “right place at the right time.”

                Kaiser Permanente member Christine Gardner may owe her life to fast action by KP nurses and techs who were following well-established life-saving protocols at the reception area of the KP Santa Clara emergency department.  Essentially, Christine’s heart stopped shortly after arriving, but she was resuscitated within minutes

                “I’m just so grateful,” says Christine, tears welling up in her eyes as she recovered in her hospital room.  “Everyone here at Kaiser Permanente has been so great.”

                Christine remembers little of what happened moments after her brother Michael dropped her off at the Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Emergency Department entrance. She had been feeling “off” all day, with back pains and then chest pains she attributed to stress and anxiety, so she got her brother to drive her to the ED.

                “He went to park the car and I walked inside.  I think I remember a young man asking me how I felt,” Christine says, her voice trailing off.

                That young man was Emergency Department Tech Alberto Mata, who began a rapid check-in process that inevitably saved Christine’s life.

                “I greet each person who arrives at our front door and ask why they’re here. It’s part of our protocol,” says Mata, who is studying to become a Paramedic.  “Christine looked fine, but she complained of chest pains, so I moved her straight to the nurse.”

                At the front desk, Kaiser Permanente Nurse Amy Murphy noted that Christine looked fairly well but became suspicious when she saw in Christine’s electronic medical record a history of possible heart issues. Nurse Murphy immediately ordered an emergency electrocardiogram.

                “The team quickly placed her on a gurney for the test and she was hooked up to the machine,” reports Murphy. “Within minutes, she coded.”

                “Code” is the informal medical term used when a patient goes into cardiopulmonary arrest; Christine’s heart stopped beating normally endangering blood flow to her brain.  

                 “Christine was in the right place at the right time,” said Brenda George, RN, MBA and Manager of the KP Santa Clara Emergency Department.  “An emergency department physician was right there assessing the situation and starting CPR.”

                For several years, Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara and other KP Hospitals have stationed physicians in the reception area of the Emergency Department. That means clinical decisions can be made quickly and efficiently.  For Christine, at a time when seconds count, the protocols made the difference.

                “It all happened very quickly,” said ED Tech Mata. “Fortunately, Christine was on a gurney so she didn’t fall to the floor and further injure herself.”

                A team of Emergency Department doctors and nurses was quickly activated. Using a defibrillator they were able to shock and re-start Christine’s heart briefly, then a second time. She was rushed to the KP Santa Clara Catheterization Lab, where Cardiologists where able to insert a stent, a kind of  tube-like device that physically reopens obstructed blood vessels. The obstruction caused Christine’s heart attack.

                Within several hours after walking into the Emergency Department, Christine awoke in a recovery area.  It was dark, but there was a nurse at her side, talking to her.

                “She said to me, ‘Honey, you died twice but you look pretty good now’,” laughed Christine, in her hospital bed. She can still joke, but later found she had collapsed on her deceased grandmother’s birthday.

                “I was very close to her and she to me,” says Christine. “I’m sure she didn’t want to see me yet, so she and the Kaiser Permanente team worked together to keep me alive.”

                Christine’s heart-healthy life will help: for the past year, she’s eaten healthy foods, exercised, and lost a lot of weight. Despite the attack, she vows to “keep it up.”

                “I’ve seen emergencies like this once before in my career,” says Nurse Amy Murphy. “It’s great all the protocols worked to save Christine’s life.”

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