Nurse Brittany Fields, a clinical educator at Indiana’s IU Health West Hospital, has worked in health care for a decade. It was her medical training, quick thinking and even swifter action that ultimately saved her husband’s life.
Fields told The Southside Times that she and her husband, Jake, were having a relaxing Saturday morning when something caught her attention. She had just finished a conversation with her husband and walked away when the sound of snoring began to escalate.
“I thought that was odd that he had fallen asleep that quickly,” Fields said. “I yelled his name and he didn’t say anything. I was poking his chest but there was still no response. I called 911 immediately. Then I ran to my neighbor’s house and I screamed for them to help me move him.”
Within seconds, Fields’ husband had begun turning blue. Luckily, her neighbors were able to assist and get Jake flat on the ground. Fields immediately began performing CPR.
“I had been doing CPR for about five minutes and I was starting to get tired,” she said. “Nate (her neighbor) started doing chest compressions while I was doing rescue breathing.”
EMS arrived shortly after. Following 20 minutes of CPR, they declared that his heart had suffered a non-life sustaining rhythm — ventricular fibrillation. As a nurse, Fields knew things were not looking good.
“I thought they were going to tell me that it had been too long,” she said. “I was really afraid I was going to have to make a decision. They never said that. Mentally, I said goodbye to Jake because I really thought he was going to die.”
After a hurried ambulance ride to the emergency room, and 45 minutes of cardiac arrest, Jake found himself at IU Health West Hospital. He spend two days breathing through a ventilator and a total week hospitalized. Without Fields’ CPR, Jake may have never survived.
“I just went into action,” she said. “I’m super thankful that my wife-brain turned off and my nurse-brain turned on. He received amazing care. It was truly incredible. My husband and I are strong in our faith, but to physically witness a miracle, I have no words for it. We’re so blessed and lucky.”
After having an internal cardiac defibrillator installed, Jake is back to living an active lifestyle with a healthy heart. His doctors are still unsure what caused the incident.
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