Our Everyday Heroes
Friday, March 3, 2017
Hospital news
Not All Superheroes Wear Capes. We hope you will agree our two employees described below are Super Girls in scrubs! We are proud to recognize their willingness to take action in a medical emergency when no one else knew what to do.
Rissa Garcia and Miriam Trevino are both operating room technicians at Medina Regional Hospital. On Monday, Feb 27, the two friends decided to go out for lunch in D'Hanis at Bill & Rosa's KK Steakhouse; something they rarely get a chance to do because of the busy surgery schedule at the hospital. Just as they were served their food, Garcia says she heard someone behind her start coughing. The coughing continued, and her friend, Trevino (who was facing the person coughing), says, "I think he's choking." There were only a handful of people in the restaurant and everyone seemed to be frozen as his coughing continued. Garcia says she and Miriam got up and asked the man and his wife if he was okay, and if they could help him. They could see that he was trying to spit out his food but he couldn’t breathe. Garcia got behind him and performed the Heimlich maneuver, giving him 5 or 6 abdominal thrusts to dislodge the food in his throat. It was a struggle because he was a tall man, and he was starting to slump in his chair, turning blue and unable to breathe. Garcia says, "It happened so quickly. We just saw that he needed help and he would choke to death if someone didn’t do something. Miriam is smaller and shorter than I am, so she tried to hold him up while I did the Heimlich." Once they cleared his airway and he regained his color, Garcia and Trevino stayed with the gentleman until EMS arrived, to make sure he was fine. Unfortunately, everything happened so fast that they didn’t get the couple's name or where they were from. They overheard someone in the restaurant say the couple just happened to stop in D'Hanis for lunch on their way to Houston. The couple was celebrating the man’s 91st birthday.
Miriam says, "It worked out just the way it needed to. I believe things happen for a reason."