Spring break is a time for students to free themselves from their studies and have a little fun. But for nursing student Natalie Davies, there was one last test before she boarded her flight to New Orleans.
A senior at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, Davies was waiting at New York’s JFK airport when she heard a man scream. She turned and saw him lying on the ground.
“With my clinical experience, plus my work in the emergency room at Yale New Haven Hospital, I just reacted,” Davies told Scrubs.
Davies started CPR compressions, and was waiting for an airport staff member to bring an automated external defibrillator (AED) when another professional — a cardiologist — arrived on the scene.
Even after the first jolt from the defibrillator, the man was still unconscious. It took Davies three rounds of alternating between the AED and chest compressions to get the man breathing again.
“It was the first time I felt like a real nurse. I didn’t think; I just knew what to do and concentrated on the patient. I wasn’t even aware people were watching until after EMS arrived,” Davies said.
Davies has been around the doctor’s office almost all her life. Her father is a doctor and Davies even worked as a medical assistant in his office before starting nursing school.
“Natalie exemplifies what it means to be a SHU nursing student. She put into practice what she has learned over the last four years and didn’t hesitate to share her knowledge and skills in an unexpected situation,” Heather Ferrillo, Sacred Heart’s undergraduate nursing program chair, told Scrubs.
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