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It was an unassuming Saturday morning of normal tasks took over the life of Think Safe’er Dan Kinney and his wife Keeley as they shopped for next week’s groceries…
Keeley hurriedly interrupted his grocery shopping at the metro area’s largest discount membership store, bringing him to the scene of a first aid incident she witnessed firsthand, while snapping up one of the last bits of Brie at a samples stand. While giving out samples of Brie an employee collapsed from her roost and fell to the concrete floor, striking her head violently and becoming extremely disoriented.
Kneeling down to assist and assess the victim, it became apparent immediately to Keely that the situation was dire! Acting quickly she raced to the nearby meat counter and began ringing the bell repeatedly for help – finally an employee appeared. Keeley instructed him to call 911 and asked for the stores first aid assistance and to contact management and both hurried back to the victim.
Knowing that her husband, Dan, dealt with life saving products and techniques everyday in his profession at Think Safe; Keeley began to call for him two aisles over. Dan hurried over and immediately began to assess the situation. Dan asked the victim key questions… she was not diabetic and she was not on medications… She could not gather herself to get back on her feet so she was placed in the recovery position and Dan continued with the questions – had 911 been called?
Handing Keeley his own phone, she dialed as a store attendant walked up to the situation (finally), and realized that he should be the one to make the call. As the store’s manager and assistant manager appeared, Dan and Keeley simultaneously asked if the store had an AED. It was immediately obvious the store was not prepared to handle this type of emergency…
The cement floor was cold…but Dan knew to cover the victim with a blanket to help prevent shock. Maybe two minutes had passed. Another responder showed up; assisting in monitoring the victim – oddly enough it was not a store employee… Come to find out there were no store employees in this high public traffic and large occupancy facility that were trained in first aid or CPR. Dan and his lay-rescuer friend continued to assess the victim. The breathing was becoming shallow, her color was not good and they eventually lost a pulse, completely unresponsive.
There was no AED, no first aid kit, no responder kit, and no CPR barrier, but Dan stepped up and took charge. While his wife called out for store employees to grab a blanket, pillow, gloves and trash bags to be pulled off the shelves, Dan started CPR as she turned the color of blue-green you only see on Halloween night ghoul costumes. Checking the airway, looking for breathing one last time – then one, two, three, four, five – he knew all too well the pace and depth due to First Voice coaching…wow was he glad he worked where he did.
“Why isn’t anyone here trained!” he thought; how would he administer the breaths…and then, the gasp and vomiting and the rolling of the victim into the recovery position – this happening about 7 minutes into the emergency, and no EMS response yet. Timed out at 8 minutes EMS responders took over…finally. Dan got up and looked around – man, everyone was watching! – but he acted!
This reads like something out of a book, but that’s only because we chose to write it that way. This is real. Dan Kinney took action in an emergency event in which, much to his bewilderment, there was no one actually trained on staff at this massive corporate store. We have found out that the victim is recovering and undergoing tests at the moment.
In the moment of need and acting as a Good Samaritan you never know how you will react to the situation at hand. Dan went to our First Voice training on Monday and reviewed the steps he took to save that woman’s life, are realized he performed flawlessly.
No guilt, only pride for this employee – we at Think Safe are proud of you Dan!
Ask Dan if you think First Voice equipment works. He’ll tell you about his experience and thoughts…in his own words.