One day in July, a registered nurse at Greenwood Leflore Hospital suddenly had to try to save a patient’s life all by herself. She didn’t know whether he would live, but he did.
After reinforcements arrived and the patient was stabilized, Lori Beth Bartlett watched as he was wheeled off to the hospital’s intensive care unit. Then, she pulled herself together and reviewed her assignments for the rest of the day. Life saving of the kind she had just conducted wasn’t on the list.
“After something like that, you have to ... regroup,” Bartlett said the other day.
Her actions recently drew the attention of the Mississippi Hospital Association, which publicized her story in its monthly newsletter series on hospital heroes, and the Delta Business Journal included the story in a section devoted to health care heroes. So she’s been called upon lately to recount what happened.
Bartlett, 26, of Greenwood, has been working as an RN for several years, both at Greenwood Leflore and in home health. At the hospital, she has served in the ICU and in the emergency room, and now she is a case manager, which means that she doesn’t directly treat patients — although she assists them and their families in understanding what is happening and what steps are being taken to improve their health.
Her supervisor, Morgan Richardson, also an RN, said she wasn’t surprised that Bartlett sprang into action when Bartlett discovered a patient was “coding” alone in his room and other nurses were steps away down the hall treating other patients.
“Typically, when you are a case manager, you are not required to respond,” Richardson said. But Bartlett did what she had to do.
She said she was close to the patient’s room, but she didn’t know him because she was planning their first visit. Bartlett heard an alarm sound, stepped into the room and noticed that he was sitting upright in a chair. She thought there wasn’t a problem and started to leave.
Then a voice in her head told her to “turn back around and look at him. His lips were ghost-like gray.”
And although Bartlett knew help would soon arrive in seconds, “I thought to myself, ‘He is by himself.’”
So she began chest compressions while he was in his recliner, trying to keep his head from bobbing, and worrying that her efforts would not be enough.
His heart had stopped. He wasn’t breathing. She couldn’t move him onto a bed by herself to better continue treating him.
The assigned nurse arrived. Then came a doctor, and all three transferred the patient to the bed. Bartlett continued the compressions.
The code team, including three doctors, filled the room. Soon his heart was beating, and he was breathing. Then, he was moved to ICU, and Bartlett remained on the floor. Perhaps five minutes had passed. Eventually, he was discharged.
She had participated in codes and in other situations that demanded a rapid response, but this situation was a little different. “He actually is my first true code to survive in my whole nursing career,” she said.
Bartlett can’t say for sure that her compressions, provided him with enough breath to keep him alive until other treatments could be administered. But she knows one thing.
The voice she heard came from “the Lord.”
“I have heard that higher power many times in my nursing career. I pay attention to that,” said Bartlett, a member of Hillview Baptist Church. She and her husband, Caleb, have a 1-year-old son, James, and on Wednesday nights at church, she teaches the 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds.
Prayer is a deliberate and daily part of her life. She asks for direction.
“I pray for guidance and wisdom,” Bartlett said. “When the Lord gives you that direction, you have to listen.”
- Contact Susan Montgomery at 581-7241 or smontgomery@gwcommonwealth.com.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Morgan Richardson and Caleb Bartlett.
