19 Minutes of Stillness
Lauren Ross, a nurse on the Birth Unit, suffered a cardiac event requiring CPR one year ago on September 23. Unit staff celebrated her one-year anniversary (they are calling it her second first birthday!) with her.
Put your hand to your chest; feel the life pulsing at your fingertips. We have always kept time using heartbeats, breaths, footsteps: the reliable rhythms of our lives. On September 23rd 2020, Lauren Ross was tuned to the beat of her running shoes, chasing the tail end of a pleasant autumn run.
The 28-year-old nurse was used to being on her feet, but abruptly she felt off, unwell, an unfamiliar flutter inhabiting her chest. Concerned, she slowed and consulted the Fitbit on her wrist. She knew something was wrong. This would be her last memory before a dark gap lasting several days.
Lauren’s neighbourhood was busy that day. Children played at the school across the street. Two "Molly Maid" employees were driving past when a young woman suddenly collapsed. A bystander called an ambulance. A helpless crowd gathered around an unconscious Lauren.
For the next nineteen minutes, she had no pulse for the Fitbit to register.
By some cosmic stroke of luck, one of the maids, knew CPR. While a postal worker (who passed by seconds before) raced to locate an AED, the maid forced blood to pump through Lauren’s body. Her first sensation upon waking in the hospital days later was aching in her chest from the hands that beat life back into her.
Lauren had felt drawn to healthcare since she was a kid. She helped bring new life to the world in the birth unit and assisted patients in the ICU. “When I first woke up, I thought I had Covid,” she says.
Her husband and healthcare team explained, much to her disbelief, that she had suffered a cardiac arrest. Officially, Idiopathic ventricular fibrillation, a diagnosis made when no underlying cause is identified. Miraculously, she made a full recovery with zero deficits.
“It can happen to anyone,” Lauren emphasizes, “and statistically, most won’t make it. A lot of people were around, but only one knew CPR.”
In the wake of her crisis, Lauren wants to stress the importance of learning CPR, a course that is often free and easily accessible. For her, the difference between life and death was not a trained medical professional, but a bystander who knew what to do.
Put your hand on your chest; feel your heart beating. How many lives could be saved if ordinary people knew what to do if it suddenly stopped? Perhaps we all have a social responsibility to those around us.
