A community of helpers and Nightingale team partner to save a heart attack patients life
Patient reunites with two volunteer rescue squads, a trained citizen and the Nightingale team
Walter Felton, 52, collapsed at his aunt’s house in Sunbury, NC last November 8th. His aunt, rattled by the sight, climbed into her car and drove to a neighbor’s house a mile away, seeking help. The neighbor dialed 911. Gates County’s three ambulances were all busy on calls. 911 dispatcher Dawn Abbott requested mutual aid from Hertford County Rescue. A visitor at the neighbor’s house, Cameron Presley, a Dare County paramedic, drove to the scene with her six-year-old daughter and performed CPR on Felton for almost 15 minutes before ambulances from Gates and Hertford Counties arrived at almost the same time.
“I just happened to be there, picking up my daughter,” Presley recalls. “When I heard what was happened, I figured I better go see if I could help.” The EMS responders are certain that Presley’s use of ‘bystander CPR’ before they were able to arrive saved Felton’s life. “If she hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have made it,” one of them asserted.
Felton was in full cardiac arrest when the Gates County ambulance met Nightingale at Suffolk Municipal Airport for the ten-minute flight to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. It would have been 45 more minutes to continue driving; precious time Felton did not have. The Nightingale team re-intubated the patient, put him on a ventilator in flight and performed an EKG so they could report to the ER by radio and helped the clinical team prepare.
Felton remembers nothing between feeling dizzy and collapsing on his aunt’s back porch to waking up in Sentara Heart Hospital, surrounded by physicians and nurses at his bedside. “What an amazing team they are,” he said.
In the end, Felton survived the deadly event with no deficits, he says, thanks to a community of dedicated volunteer helpers, Nightingale, and Sentara Heart Hospital, who came together at just the right time.
“There are angels among us, and some of you are here today,” Felton said at a reunion lunch at Sunbury Volunteer Fire Department on March 6th, just four months after his near-fatal cardiac arrest. “I don’t have the words to thank you for what you did for me. Everybody was in the right place at the right time, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.”
Felton offered the squads a $5,000 donation to divide between them. “It’s the least I can do,” he said.
The first responders thanked Felton for asking to meet with them. “We don’t see patients very often after we deliver them to the hospital,” Dawn Abbott said. “It’s gratifying for us to see you doing so well.”
Walter Felton’s survival is a testament to the partnership between Nightingale and EMS agencies throughout southeast Virginia and northeast North Carolina, to provide life-saving interventions and rapid transport when every minute counts.
“I just happened to be there, picking up my daughter,” Presley recalls. “When I heard what was happened, I figured I better go see if I could help.” The EMS responders are certain that Presley’s use of ‘bystander CPR’ before they were able to arrive saved Felton’s life. “If she hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have made it,” one of them asserted.
Felton was in full cardiac arrest when the Gates County ambulance met Nightingale at Suffolk Municipal Airport for the ten-minute flight to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. It would have been 45 more minutes to continue driving; precious time Felton did not have. The Nightingale team re-intubated the patient, put him on a ventilator in flight and performed an EKG so they could report to the ER by radio and helped the clinical team prepare.
Felton remembers nothing between feeling dizzy and collapsing on his aunt’s back porch to waking up in Sentara Heart Hospital, surrounded by physicians and nurses at his bedside. “What an amazing team they are,” he said.
In the end, Felton survived the deadly event with no deficits, he says, thanks to a community of dedicated volunteer helpers, Nightingale, and Sentara Heart Hospital, who came together at just the right time.
“There are angels among us, and some of you are here today,” Felton said at a reunion lunch at Sunbury Volunteer Fire Department on March 6th, just four months after his near-fatal cardiac arrest. “I don’t have the words to thank you for what you did for me. Everybody was in the right place at the right time, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.”
Felton offered the squads a $5,000 donation to divide between them. “It’s the least I can do,” he said.
The first responders thanked Felton for asking to meet with them. “We don’t see patients very often after we deliver them to the hospital,” Dawn Abbott said. “It’s gratifying for us to see you doing so well.”
Walter Felton’s survival is a testament to the partnership between Nightingale and EMS agencies throughout southeast Virginia and northeast North Carolina, to provide life-saving interventions and rapid transport when every minute counts.