OFF-DUTY NURSE SAVES WEDDING GUEST WITH CPR By recognising agonal breathing and immediately administering CPR, nurse Kelly Ann saved the life of her fellow guest at a recent wedding
4 | HEALTH MATTERS WINTER 2021
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urse Kelly Ann McCabe went from wedding guest to hero when she saved the bride’s uncle from near certain death as he went into cardiac arrest. And she highlighted the importance of ordinary members of the public being trained in CPR and recognising the signs of a cardiac arrest so they too might become a life-saver one day. The 30-year-old staff nurse in St Luke’s General Hospital had travelled to Ennis from Kilkenny on October 2nd, looking forward to a day of relaxation and celebration for her neighbour’s wedding. During the pre-reception drinks at the hotel in Ennis, Kelly Ann and her partner Mark noticed a man stumbling and falling. Soon after, there was noticeable panic and
somebody shouted if there was a medic in the room. “Mark told me to go over and see if I could help. I ran to the man but it is so difficult to assess somebody without any patient history. It is like being put into a situation blindfolded. But I could tell from him that he wasn’t looking great,” explained Kelly Ann, pictured above. She got him down on the floor and knew instinctively to put him on his back. “Another person, a volunteer medic, came to assist me. After a few seconds, he said that we didn’t need to perform CPR because the man was breathing but I knew something wasn’t right. I recognised that he was doing what is known as agonal breathing. It sounds almost like a snore and is a sure sign that a person is struggling to get oxygen in. So I
