A few weeks ago, we talked about the three pillars of a successful nurse: Education, Technical Skill and Empathy. These three together reflect the belief that nursing is a vocation. It’s passion that comes from within. And, being a nurse doesn’t end when the shift is done.
Two nurses from Stanford Health Care exemplify this philosophy and their story is worth sharing.

Sophia Loo, RN, and Angela Bingham, RN, veteran cardiac care nurses at Stanford Health Care were on their way back from a health-care conference in Orlando, Fla. As they settled into their seats, Loo heard a woman a few rows ahead of her saying, “Sir, sir, are you OK?” and then, “I think this man needs help. Can someone help him?”
Loo saw a male passenger who appeared to be in real trouble. He was pale, unresponsive, sweating and breathing in a way that Loo recognized immediately. Called agonal respiration, the breathing pattern is often a sign of imminent cardiac arrest. Bingham, seated a few rows back, had noticed the commotion and was on her way to help, when she heard Loo call out, “Angela, get up here!” Other passengers had left their seats, blocking the aisle, forcing Bingham to crawl over empty seats to get to the passenger.
The nurses knew that they had to start cardiopulmonary resuscitation immediately. “But we couldn’t do CPR while he was in the seat,” Loo said, so she recruited three passengers to maneuver the man into the aisle where there wasn’t much room.
“It was surreal,” Bingham said. “We just went into nursing mode,” Loo said, “but the stress was beyond anything I’ve ever known as a nurse. We were so focused on what we were doing — we knew the gravity of his condition.”
Lacking a ventilating device, the nurses focused on chest compressions, conducted at a rate of 100 times per minute. When the automated external defibrillator that the Federal Aviation Administration requires all commercial aircraft to carry  arrived. It showed that the man’s heart was in a life-threatening rhythm and advised a shock. A a second read of the defibrillator, it instructed, “No shock,” which, Bingham said, arises when there is no heart activity at all. But the two nurses continued to perform CPR.
Paramedics finally arrived to help and by the time the passenger was carried out of the plane he was conscious again. Loo and Bingham were rewarded with a round of applause from onlookers on the aircraft, and someone called out, “Great job!”
The experience, said Loo, “reinforced why I went into nursing. I was so humbled and grateful that I could do something, that Angela and I knew what to do.”
From all of us at Barco’s Nightingales Foundation, thank you for your caring and care.
Michael and Frida Donner
Read more at: http://stanfordmedicine.org/communitynews/2015spring/nurses.html#sthash.tCpX9R8S.dpuf