“He was snoring strangely”: four nurses save a 32-year-old in cardiac arrest in flight

They wanted to do a one-day hit and run in Paris, leaving very early and returning very late. But on the outward flight they became the protagonists of a real undertaking.
It is the story of three nurses (Katia De Bei, Riccardo Baldo and Gina Valentino) and a cardiologist (Tiziana Cavallarin) from the Chioggia hospital, who at dawn on Tuesday were on an easyJet flight to reach the French capital. .

About half an hour after departure, however, they realized that something was wrong with the passenger behind them, a 32-year-old young man, who was apparently sleeping and snoring.

“We all four of us turn to the young man. Then we exchange a knowing look. We recognize that heavy breathing immediately, it is not a normal snoring in sleep ”, says Baldo.

So they started shaking it first slowly, then harder and harder. But the boy was not conscious and the alarm went off: “We do not feel the pulse, the breathing is very weak and we understand that he is in cardiac arrest - they explain -. We begin to perform external heart massage, by hand, but the space is too narrow ". At that point they laid him in the corridor and resumed the massage with more vigor.

“At that moment we give it up for lost - reconstructs Baldo - but we don't give up and continue to perform the massage by hand, waiting for the Dae. I calculate that about ten minutes have passed and the heart suddenly starts beating again ”.

Eventually the boy woke up: “Thanks and sorry, sorry for everything”, were his first words. The doctors monitored his health conditions until landing and "delivery" at the airport to doctors and nurses of the Parisian emergency room.

“Proud for my team, which without knowing it has moved from one work ward to another - says the head of Cardiology of Chioggia Roberto Valle -, to remind me that lives and hearts are saved everywhere, not just in the hospital”.

"Our health workers - comments Edgardo Contato, Director General of Ulss 3 Serenissima - rest around Europe with these beautiful escapes from the satisfying but tiring life of hospital wards, but they never really go on vacation, because the vocation to care, to take charge of suffering and human life, for our doctors, nurses and operators, that is a vocation that never goes on vacation. I congratulate our four nurses for this gesture, who represent all the professionalism and passion put in place every day by the health service of the ULSS 3 Serenissima ”.

(Unioneonline / D)