When Richmond Carson became a manager of Carma restaurant in Leawood, Kansas, his mom recommended he learn some lifesaving skills, including CPR.
“You never know when you might need it,” she said.
With a setup like that, you can probably guess where this story is headed. And you’re right, for the most part.
But as with any good tale, this one has many layers – twists and turns, drama and tension, coincidences and lessons, all connected by a mother’s wisdom.It started on a Saturday in January 2015.
Nancy Holland spent the day grocery shopping, bathing her boxer puppy, Lincoln, and getting her nails painted in her favorite polish, a pink-red tone called Dutch Tulips. She kept so busy that she and her husband, Jim, were a few minutes late to dinner with their neighbors.
Carma wasn’t among their go-to restaurants, which is why they picked it. Jim wanted to break from their routine and remembered the delicious rigatoni the one time they ate there.
The hostess, Bria, seated them in the main dining room near the bathroom. Nancy asked if another table was available and Bria took them to the private dining rooms.
A few bites into her salad, Nancy pushed her plate aside. She said, “I’ll be right back,” and walked to the bathroom.
Another woman already was in there. She soon ran out screaming, “Some woman passed out in the bathroom!”
Richmond found Nancy face-down, drenched in blood from her nose and tongue, casualties of her smashing into the floor.
Fearing a neck injury, he didn’t want to move her. But she also didn’t have a pulse. The 911 operator insisted he flip her over because getting her breathing mattered most.
“Do you know CPR?” asked the woman from the bathroom, her name never captured, only her voice on the 911 tape.
Richmond provided CPR until paramedics arrived, keeping blood circulating. The first responders also brought an automated external defibrillator, or AED, because the restaurant didn’t have one. It took three jolts to restart Nancy’s heart.
At their secluded table, Jim and friends were oblivious. They saw lights from a fire truck but didn’t know they were answering a call at this restaurant.
Nancy had been gone about 10 minutes when the other woman in their group went to check on her. Jim ended up arriving to see his wife’s bloody body popping off the ground from the force of the AED.
Paramedics loaded Nancy into an ambulance and Jim got into a police car that would follow the ambulance. Only, the ambulance didn’t move.
A police officer went to check on the delay. Nancy’s heart had stopped again.
Nancy had no family history of heart disease … at least, not until three months before, when her dad suffered the kind of heart attack so severe it’s dubbed “the widow maker.”
Perfect response by paramedics saved his life. It included a helicopter rescue from his home in rural Arkansas.
Nancy wasn’t having a heart attack, though.
When a heart stops suddenly, without symptoms, it’s almost always cardiac arrest. Often considered synonymous with a heart attack, they are different. A heart attack is like a plumbing problem, cardiac arrest is more of an electrical malfunction.
But Nancy had something in common with her dad. Thanks to Richmond and the first responders, she, too, received textbook care.
It also helped that the hospital was three blocks away.
The source of Nancy’s problem was a blood clot that likely formed outside her…
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