A guy swallowed a pair of scissors!!

He said “I was picking my teeth.”

Instead, a catcher throwing a ball to third base last weekend hit Kyle McCammon in the chest. The impact, which hit Kyle between the second and fourth rib, stopped his heart from beating.

Luckily for 12-year-old Kyle, who plays competitive baseball as a Southaven Panther, his mother is a nurse, and she and two other nurses ran to his aid.

The freakish incident happened at 5:35 p.m. Saturday during the Rumble on the River tournament between the Southaven Panthers and the Arkansas Rattlers at First Tennessee Fields in Cordova.

When his mother, Mary McCammon, rushed on the field, she saw that her son was still breathing, but it was shallow and labored. His eyes had glazed over and he couldn’t respond.

Her husband, assistant coach David McCammon initially thought the breath had been knocked out of him — a typical baseball injury. But Mary McCammon, a home health nurse, realized it was much more serious.

Taking her middle and index fingers she placed them against her son’s neck: “I couldn’t feel a pulse. It was like I was in a tunnel. It was just me and Kyle.”

Another nurse and mom, Cyndi Herrington of Olive Branch tried the other side. She couldn’t feel a pulse either.

Color was draining from Kyle’s face. His lips were turning blue.

“I think we all said in unison, ‘He’s not breathing. We need to do CPR,’” the child’s mother recalled.

That’s when another nurse from the opposing team, Deanna Gilbert of Marked Tree, Ark., stepped in and offered to help. “I got this Mom,” Gilbert told Mary McCammon.

Twenty compressions to the chest. A single breath. Twenty more compressions to the chest. Another breath.

For seven minutes, the two nurses did what they had been trained to do. Because of them, Kyle survived.

As tears streamed down her face that day, Herrington said all she could think about was, “I can’t let this child die.”

By the time the ambulance arrived, Kyle had regained consciousness. He stayed overnight at Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, and Mary McCammon said doctors gave her son a clean bill of health.

Kyle was diagnosed with “commotio cordis,” which means commotion or concussion of the heart.

“It’s very rare,” explained Dr. Barry Gilmore, Le Bonheur’s medical director for Emergency Services. When it happens, it is often with boys playing sports — particularly baseball. “We don’t even see one a year. The overall survival rate is 15 percent,” he said. “The ones who have immediate CPR or a defibrillator — within the first one to three minutes — survive.”

From 1996 to 2007, just 188 cases have been reported to the U.S. Commotio Cordis Registry.

That is why the Southaven Panther coaches are now getting CPR training.

Kyle remembers being hit and trying to get up but nothing after that.

His mother is hoping her son’s brush with death will convince others to get cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR training. Even better, she said, “These defibrillators are under $1,000. They should be really anywhere people are.

“Never in a million years would you think a ball would stop his heart. But it did,” Mary McCammon said. “Those nurses saved his life.”

– Lela Garlington: 529-2349

Team Nursing is a decentralized system in which the care of a patient is distributed among the members of a group working in coordinated effort. The charge nurse delegates authority to a team leader who must be a professional nurse. This nurse leads the team-usually of 4 to 6 members-in the care of between 15 and 25 patients. The team leader assigns tasks, schedules care, and instructs team members in details of care. A conference is held at the beginning and end of each shift to allow team members to exchange information and the team leader to make changes in the nursing care plan for any patient.

Primary Nursing is a system for the distribution of nursing care in which care of one patient is managed for the entire 24-hour day by one nurse who directs and coordinates nurses and other personnel; schedules all tests, procedures, and daily activities for that patient; and cares for that patient personally when on duty. In acute care the primary care nurse may be responsible for only one patient; in intermediate care the primary care nurse may be responsible for three or more patients. Nurse midwives and other nurse practitioners practice primary nursing. Some advantages are continuity of care for the patient; accountability of the nurse for that care; patient-centered care that is comprehensive, individualized, and coordinated; and the professional satisfaction of the nurse.

I’ve seen and heard that hospitals will be phasing out the LPN role at the facility and hiring additional RNs and nurse aides.
Many hospitals are changing from a staffing model that utilizes RNs, LPNs and nurse aides, to one comprised of RNs and nurse aides. I have been an LPN for 16 years and
I’ve worked agency the whole time. What’s wrong with Nursing and why don’t they want us (LPNs) anymore? Isn’t there a nursing shortage going on?

Mynursing.org – Where a Nurse can be a Nurse!