'Duty Called' For Baylor EMBA Student

by Alan Hunt

A Baylor EMBA graduate student was instrumental in saving the life of a swimmer who apparently suffered full cardiac arrest at poolside of The Cooper Aerobics Center in North Dallas.
"Talk about being in the right place at the right time," said former helicopter flight trauma nurse Sandra Kinkade, who is just starting her second semester in Baylor's Dallas Executive MBA program, which has its campus at The Cooper Aerobics Center. Kinkade, who holds a master's degree in nursing, is an emergency medical services market segment manager at the Bell helicopter plant in Fort Worth.
Her timely response to the poolside emergency occurred on Friday, Jan. 11, while she was attending an EMBA class session. She said, "I had just sat down to lunch in the dining area adjacent to the pool when one of my classmates was looking out of the window and watched this guy go to his knees. He said, 'Sandy, I think somebody has just collapsed.' Duty called and I immediately went out to him. He was still breathing initially, but that didn't last very long. Then, he didn't have a pulse and he was in full cardiac arrest, so we did mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions."
Describing the rescue as a team effort, Kinkade said, "We did bystander CPR until the Cooper Clinic brought the automatic external defibrillator. Two shocks brought him back. Early shock is about the only chance people in this particular rhythm have for being revived."
Kinkade said two of her EMBA classmates, David Buggs and Laine Brantner, ran to the Cooper Clinic for oxygen and to tell them that the man was a "full arrest," indicating to a medical person there the type of equipment that was needed.
She said applying the defibrillator within a four-minute time frame was "very key" to the man's survival. "He got a beating heart and a good pulse back, and he started waking up probably about two or three minutes after that," she said. The man was admitted to a local hospital and Kinkade said at last report she had heard that he "is doing well." Kinkade, who spent 14 years as a helicopter flight nurse in Tennessee and Nevada, says she is a "huge advocate" of the automatic external defibrillator. "Everybody, even a lay person, can use them," she said. "They are only about $3,000 and it's a pretty good investment for somebody's life. You just never know." She said a major restaurant chain is purchasing them, along with other customer-based organizations nationwide. "If you can't be guaranteed help in four minutes (following cardiac arrest), then I would say that you probably should have one close by," she said.
Kinkade said her EMBA classmates were "quite abuzz" about the incident. "It certainly brought back memories for me," she added "Lots of times we would get paged out just as we sat down for a meal."