Editor’s Note: This article is part of EMS1’s Year-in-Review coverage, looking back on the biggest industry stories of the year. Check it out!
On Oct. 26, Erin Mender, a registered nurse, attended a University of Alabama football game and left the stadium with two wins: a ‘W’ for the Crimson Tide, as well as the successful resuscitation of a fellow healthcare worker.
Mender, 30, and her fiancé, Mike Eldridge, were on a road trip from Indiana to visit friends and attend the game against the University of Missouri. The group arrived at the bustling Bryant-Denny Stadium on the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa and climbed to their seats.
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“We were in the very upper deck of the stadium – way up there,” Mender said. As she was getting situated, she heard someone yell for help and immediately went to aid the venue’s medical team personnel who were treating a middle-aged fan.
“I was happy to help,” Mender said. “He had passed out and hit his head. His heart rate was in the 150s, and he was hypotensive. I believe he [may] have gone into A-Fib. His pulse was irregular at times.”
Mender assisted with taking the patient’s vitals, later walking the patient down to the waiting ambulance with the medical team. As she walked back to her seat, a second person grabbed her requesting help with another medical emergency.
“I literally thought, ‘There is no way,’ and ran up the stairs,” Mender said.
As she got closer to the second patient, she noticed he was wearing an EMT vest and identified the man as a member of the medical team she had just assisted.
“When he went unconscious, I went right into ‘nurse’ mode and my basic BLS kicked in,” Mender said. “When he wasn’t responding to me and I couldn’t feel a pulse, I didn’t feel like there was any other option other than to do what I needed to, and that was CPR.”
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Mender laid the 77-year-old EMT on a bleacher and performed CPR for 63 seconds in the hot, crowded and loud stadium. It felt like it took forever for help to arrive, she said, but chalked it up to the adrenaline of the moment: “I know it was quick. Once they had the first gentleman situated, they ran right back up to us.”
As a registered nurse, Mender was no stranger to a frenzied medical response, but the location was challenging on another level.
“Doing CPR in the hospital is very controlled; you know that when things go wrong, you have every resource right there with you,” she said. “We were on bleachers in the blazing sun. It was a very chaotic, scary moment. We also do not have thousands of people around watching in a hospital, so the added stress of extra eyes was a lot as well.”
Still, despite the noise and the heat, she dialed into what she needed to do.
“The stadium was so loud, but when I realized the severity of the situation, I’m not really sure why or how, but I was able to tone out everything and focus on my compressions and the situation at hand,” she said. “When he took his first gasp of air, everything was loud again. It’s really something I don’t know how to explain.”
Mender’s quick actions went viral shortly after the incident, as those in the stands recorded her response and posted the videos to social media. In one Instagram post with more than 7 million views, Mender was seen hugging her fiancé, overcome with emotion after responding to the two crises.
Unfortunately, Mender said she did not receive an update about the EMT’s condition after the event, but hopes the incident spurs others to take a CPR course.
“I am so grateful for every opportunity I get to share my story,” she said. “I hope it inspires someone to get CPR certified and not be afraid to help someone in a time of need.”
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