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Two Las Colinas Medical Center Nurses Perform Three-Minute Miracle, Save Young Marathoner
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Three minutes. In three minutes, you can order take out. Check your e-mail. Call a friend. Or, like two nurses at HCA Healthcare’s Las Colinas Medical Center, you can save a life.
Just shy of their one-year anniversary with the HCA Healthcare North Texas hospital, nurses Laura Rampley and Ron Samuel were in the right place at the right time. The two had volunteered to represent the Las Colinas booth to talk orthopedics at the Irving Marathon in April, when 22-year old Michael Loftis, after completing the half-marathon (13.1 miles), collapsed at the finish line.
Commotion ensued. Onlookers gathered. Good Samaritans tried to help. And Rampley, critical care services director at Las Colinas, quickly jumped into action. She couldn’t find a pulse on the young runner and instructed her partner, Samuel, manager of the hospital’s medical, surgical and telemetry unit, to start chest compressions while she ran to grab the nearest Automatic External Defibrillator (AED).
Together, they continued CPR and shocked his heart with the AED until his heart beat returned. Three minutes – the time it took to revive Michael Loftis.
It later was determined he had suffered a heart attack due to a congenital heart defect. Five days after the three-minute miracle, Loftis, who is engaged to be married, underwent successful open heart surgery at a local hospital.
Three minutes. There are many things you can accomplish in that short timeframe. For two nurses at Las Colinas Medical Center, they saved a life.
Michael Loftis and nurses Laura Rampley and Ron Samuel reunited three weeks after that fateful day. Watch the local news story here and the touching reunion on YouTube below:
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About HCA Healthcare
HCA Healthcare, one of the nation's leading providers of healthcare services, is comprised of 183 hospitals and more than 2,300 sites of care, in 20 states and the United Kingdom. Our more than 283,000 colleagues are connected by a single purpose — to give patients healthier tomorrows.
As an enterprise, we recognize the significant responsibility we have as a leading healthcare provider within each of the communities we serve, as well as the opportunity we have to improve the lives of the patients for whom we are entrusted to care. Through the compassion, knowledge and skill of our caregivers, and our ability to leverage our scale and innovative capabilities, HCA Healthcare is in a unique position to play a leading role in the transformation of care.
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