Back in March of 2017, Mary Smith took an afternoon off work to visit her daughter and 2-week-old baby grandson, Brody, at their Minneapolis suburb home.
Mary brought groceries inside for dinner and carried a mobile crib up the stairs from the car. She suddenly found herself out of breath.
She collapsed, making a thud that her daughter, Lindsey Bomgren, heard from the hallway to the nursery.
Thinking her mom fell, Bomgren called out to her. Smith didn’t respond.
Bomgren put down Brody and raced to the entryway. She grabbed her phone and called 911. She told the dispatcher her mom wasn’t breathing. Smith was in cardiac arrest.
Bomgren then asked the dispatcher a question that would change everything: Can you coach me through CPR?
Although Bomgren had refreshed her training for CPR, a lifesaving technique, nine months earlier as part of her job as a fitness instructor, now that she had to use it – and on her mom – she needed guidance and support.
The dispatcher told her to stack hand-over-hand and place them in the center of her mom’s chest. The dispatcher then repeated the words “pump, pump, pump” to maintain the rhythm needed to keep blood flowing to Smith’s organs.
“It made me feel I was not all alone,” Bomgren said. “It provided a sense of calm.”
She provided Hands-Only CPR for nearly 10 minutes until an ambulance arrived and paramedics took over.
More than 350,000 cardiac arrests occur outside of the hospital each year. CPR, especially if administered immediately after cardiac arrest, can double or triple a person’s chance of survival.
Paramedics administered two shocks from an automated external defibrillator to get Smith’s heart back into rhythm before transporting her to the hospital.
For the full story, visit the source: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2019-08-12/aha-news-daughter-makes-lifesaving-plea-to-911-coach-me-through-cpr
