Back at work with lifesavers

OLYMPIA – Charyn Niemeyer was back at work Thursday at a Department of Social and Health Services call center downtown, less than five weeks after suffering cardiac arrest and collapsing at work.

Niemeyer, 58, of Montesano, said her co-workers’ quick action April 20 probably saved her life.

“If they hadn’t acted as quickly as they had and knew CPR, I wouldn’t be sitting here today, basically – or I’d be in a nursing home and brain dead,” she said.

Her co-workers feared the worst when they found her collapsed on the floor.

“I found her laying on the floor, she was quite discolored, and truthfully – can I say this? – I thought she was dead,” Sunny Hawkins, a co-worker and former maternity ward nurse, said.

“We all thought she was,” fellow co-worker Lori Humphrey said.

Humphrey is part of the Medical Assistance Customer Service Center safety team, volunteers trained in CPR and other emergency techniques. The state has the teams in most of its offices.

Hawkins used a breathing mask to force oxygen into Niemeyer’s lungs. A co-worker did chest compressions to keep her blood pumping. A defibrillator had been brought over by the time the paramedics arrived, a minute or two after Humphrey made the 911 call.

Six days later, Niemeyer woke up in Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia.

“The team really deserves some credit, I’ll tell you,” Niemeyer said. “It is amazing. Until I woke up, they didn’t know how long I’d been without oxygen.”

Niemeyer said her doctors and nurses praised her co-workers for their fast work, which staved off the damage that happens when the brain is starved for oxygen for several minutes.

Paramedics revived Niemeyer with a defibrillator and restored a pulse before taking her to the hospital, where she was intentionally kept unconscious for days. She now has a pacemaker.

Many people have emergency training, but not everyone can call on it when the moment comes, call center director Diane Getchman said.

“For as much trauma as there was and as much confusion as some people may have felt there was … it couldn’t have been any better than it was. It couldn’t have a better outcome. People couldn’t have reacted better, I don’t think, than they did,” she said.

Rhonda Stolz, Niemeyer’s supervisor, noted that 100 people work on the third floor of the Cherry Street office, but the process was fast and orderly.

“People had every door ready to let the paramedics in. The elevators were ready. Even when I brought some of the medics up, everyone was out of the hallway; you didn’t have to say ‘Back up,’ ” Stolz said.

Hawkins had revived only infants with CPR, and co-worker Jonathan J. Brogger had never performed it on anyone.

“For me, it was that button, that switch that flipped between looking at Charyn and then realizing that I needed to be more intimately involved,” said Brogger, who also is on the Medical Assistance Customer Service Center safety team. “When that switch flipped, it was a different situation entirely. That’s what I take from the experience. If it ever happens again, I would be much more comfortable stepping in and doing it.”

Hawkins insists the entire thing was a miracle: Someone found Niemeyer before she had gone too long without oxygen, the safety officers were nearby, the paramedics arrived immediately, and Niemeyer was taken to a hospital that specializes in cardiac care.

But all that shouldn’t take away from the ability of the average person to save a life, Hawkins added.

“Don’t think you have to do it perfectly,” she said. “If you think you can intervene and help someone, err on that side.”

Adam Wilson: 360-753-1688

awilson@theolympian.com

www.theolympian.com/adamwilson