Healing Hands: Army medic saves a life

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Kyle J. Johnson
  • JBER Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  His eyes were lifeless and empty, staring up at her from the gym floor and she could hear his ribs cracking with each compression, but she knew she couldn't stop.

If she stopped, those eyes would never see life again.

"That was the worst part," she said.

"It was a Wednesday, just a regular day I guess," said Specialist Kayla Richie, a combat medic with the 2d Engineer Brigade, U.S. Army Alaska. "I was just going for a quick workout. I couldn't stay long because I had a Bible study to go to."

However, Sept. 17 would turn out to be anything but ordinary.

"I think I was using the ropes and a gym attendant came up to talk to me," she recounted. "I figured someone had rolled their ankle or something. They know I'm a medic, and whenever someone gets hurt they will occasionally ask me to check it out."

Richie never expected what was about to happen next.

"Someone's passed out on the basketball court!" exclaimed Amber Fraley, a recreation assistant at Buckner Physical Fitness Center, where the incident occurred. "It doesn't look like he's breathing!"

Then, the world slowed down.

Richie ran to the basketball courts and saw the player sprawled on the court. Fraley was already on the phone with 911.

"It was dead quiet," said Chad Personius, a lifeguard at the facility.

"You could tell he passed out," Richie said. "You could tell by how his body was laid out."

"A lot of times, when someone is passed out, they will do quick, shallow breaths as their body tries to get oxygen back to their brain," Richie explained. "He wasn't even doing that."

Richie pushed through the crowd around the fallen player and was quickly at his side. "I rolled him over to check for breathing," she said. "He wasn't."

"I couldn't find a pulse," she continued. "I thought it might be because my hands were shaking and my adrenaline was going. So I took a breath and tried again."

Richie said she told the nearest bystander to go find an Automatic External Defibrillator, and then another man appeared - a man Richie wouldn't identify until the next day.

"I know CPR too," said Army Col. Scott Green, who is scheduled to be the next commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division.

"Ok, come on, let's go," Richie said.

Richie went to the patient's left side and the colonel took up position at his head to properly position him for rescue breathing.

If his head was angled too far, Green could risk blowing air into his stomach instead of his lungs.

Without scissors to cut the shirt, they had to settle for pulling it up to the young man's shoulders so that the AED could be applied when it arrived.

Richie put her hands on his gray, quickly cooling skin, and began the first set of compressions.
One.

There was no time or reason to close his eyes, so they remained open, staring at Richie as she worked desperately to save his life.
Two.

"I could hear his ribs crunching," Richie said. "I don't know if I broke them, but I had to keep going, you know?"
Three.

She kept counting, every compression jerking those eyes just ever so slightly.

"I've seen people passed out. I've seen people hurt, but this was totally different," Richie said. "There was nobody home."

Ten.

"I just kept thinking, 'This is somebody's son," Richie said.

Fifteen.

Green leaned down to begin rescue breathing. "No! It's thirty now!" Richie said as she continued compressions.

Twenty.

"Come on man! Come on!" Richie pleaded in between compressions.

Thirty.

She finished the first set and Green gave two rescue breaths. While he did this, Richie frantically ripped off the weight gloves she still had on from working out.

Then they checked his vitals, there were none. So they started over.

"I was so scared I was shaking," Richie explained. "I just kept thinking and praying, 'Oh God, please let this guy come back.' But it just didn't look good."

Toward the end of the second set of compressions, Fraley came running onto the scene with an AED. Several people ran to help get the packaged device unwrapped and ready for use.

"One gentleman was pulling the pads out while someone else positioned the unit," Personius said. "I grabbed the pads and started applying them."

Personius positioned himself on the patient's right side and applied the pads even as Richie was continuing compressions. The automated system was already attempting to analyze the patient's vitals before all the pads could even be applied.

"Analyzing, do not touch the patient," came the primitive male robot voice from the AED.

"We had to stop, step back and wait for it to do its thing," Richie said as if remembering the anxiety of the moment.

Finally, the AED said, "Analysis complete, shock advised."

"Everyone get back!" Richie commanded. "Nobody touch him!"

Personius and Fraley began pushing the crowd back, a friend let go of the man's hand, and the button with the orange lightning bolt on the AED began to flash.

Personius pushed it.

"On T.V. you see them twitch, but this was different," Richie said with a disturbed shudder. "His whole body ... jumped."

"At this point, I'm trying not to cry, because nobody wants to see the one person they think knows what they're doing break down, you know?" said the Mililani, Hawaii, native.

The shock was over in a heartbeat, but there was still no pulse.

While the AED charged, they began the third set of compressions.

The patient's neck strained, tendons bulging against the skin and a sucking sound came from his throat.

"He's trying to breathe! Let's keep going!" Richie exclaimed.

"He kept making this short, gurgling breaths," Richie said. "But he wasn't really breathing, there was no exhale. I never heard air come out."

The AED was nearly charged and emergency personnel came rushing in with their equipment.

"Just keep going until we're set up," they said.

Finally, the AED was ready to analyze again and they stopped compressions to let it do so.

The unique robotic voice said, "No shock advised."

"That's good," Richie said. "That means it's detecting vitals."

As the analysis completed, the emergency personnel took over and began to put intravenous fluids into the fallen player.

"As soon as they put the IVs in, he jumped awake, trying to fight them off," Richie said. "All I could think was, 'Oh thank God. Thank God.'"

Richie received the Army Achievement medal for her instrumental role in saving the man's life.

Richie didn't know anything about it until attending the state of the brigade address when her noncommissioned officer, Army Staff Sgt. Kelee Williams - who is also a combat medic with the 2d Engineer Brigade, U.S. Army Alaska - asked her, "So what's up with your award?"

"What award?" Richie responded.

Then she was called to the front.

"I was trying not to blush, I was so embarrassed," Richie said with a laugh. "I just wanted to tiptoe into the shadows."

Before she had time to think, she heard the command, "Attention to orders!"

Army Lt. Col. Kirt Boston, the rear detachment commander for the 2d Engineer Brigade and the rear detachment's command sergeant major, Command Sgt. Major Bryan Lynch, presented the medal to her.

To Richie, it was never about recognition; as a matter of fact she said she tried very hard to get away with saving this person's life anonymously.

"I didn't tell anybody," Richie said. "My NCO didn't even know. I didn't want them to do all this stuff."

Richie even said she tried to sneak back to where she was working out so she could finish her workout before her Bible study. However, she ran out of time because the emergency personnel kept stopping her to ask questions about the incident.

"I was very impressed with her medical and technical knowledge," Green said. "She was very calm and collected."

"It seemed like just another day for her," Green expanded.

Richie may have simply been in the right place at the right time, but she was at the gym because she's also a fitness enthusiast.

Richie said her passion is for fitness and sports, but said she wanted to be either a mechanic or a medic because she enjoys helping people and hands-on work.

As a combat medic, Richie gets to heal people with her hands.