Patient Donates To Ambulance Service As A Thank You For Life-Saving Efforts
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Jean Northenor made a donation to Four Way Ambulance Service Friday after the nonprofit Mentone EMS helped save her life in June.
Part of the $2,000 donation will be used to help pay for the EMS staff’s new jackets, while the remaining $500 will go toward a Christmas party for them. Jean and her husband, Jim, presented the card and check to a group from Four Way at the Northenors’ home.
“We were told the jackets were about $1,500 so we decided to buy them and not have the workers buy them. We thought that since it was close to Christmas, maybe you’d like to have a party. It’s Christmas and we wanted to do something. People like you don’t get the recognition you deserve,” Jean said.
She recalled what she could of the day they saved her life.
Jean said, “Jim called them the morning of June 24 and I’m sitting here in this chair having a heart attack. And I mean it was not a little guy, it was a big deal, and I guess, somewhere along the way, I died a couple of times and they had to bring me back.”
Jim said, “When the guy came in here, he sat down right there on the floor with a little EKG machine and hooked it up, and looked up at me, and he said, ‘She’s having a heart attack. We’re headed to Fort Wayne, don’t even try to follow us.’ Boom! They were out of here.”
Jean said the EMS took her directly to the cathe lab where a couple of stents were put in her heart.
“Somebody, and I don’t even remember how I know this, said that I actually died twice. Now, whether it was with this group or in the hospital, I don’t know the answer to that,” Jean said.
EMT Bobby Asher told her, “You actually stopped breathing as soon as we got you into the cathe center. Once we got you up on the table, we went to walk out, and when we walked out, you had stopped and they had brought you back. After that, I don’t know what happened.”
He also recalled what he remembered happened that day.
“We were called out for some difficulty breathing, and some chest discomfort, not feeling well. Once we arrived here, we determined that there was something going on. Lutheran EMS responded as well, to assist us ... We hooked her up to our monitors and ... we perceived that there was something going on with her. The monitor read that it was severe ST elevation,” Asher said.
He said the severe ST elevation meant her heart was in stress and told him and Tim Swick, the ambulance driver that day, that Jean was having a heart attack.
“Once we got her hooked up and we saw that she had extreme ST elevation, we were like we need to go because minutes count when that happens. We quickly responded, got her up on the cot and in the ambulance, and went lights and sirens all the way to Fort Wayne,” Asher said.
To thank the EMS for helping save her life, Jean said she just wanted to do something for them “because I know darn well that I wouldn’t be alive if it hadn’t been for you,” Jean said.
Jim said they heard that EMS staff – which includes volunteers and part-time workers – would have to start shelling out money for uniforms and he and Jean didn’t want them to have to do that.
“We thought maybe we could buy uniforms. Could we do that?” Jean asked the group at her home Friday. She was told the EMS workers just got new jackets.
“That’s so generous of you,” Lori Miller, Four Way board vice president, said.
Tracy Moyer, Harrison Township trustee, said, “The EMS service being a not-for-profit, they do a lot of fundraising. They have a 5K in the summer, and they raise money, and they sell ice cream during Mentone Days.”
While Jean didn’t think the check presentation was going to be made into a big deal, Moyer responded, “But it is a big deal because it’s very much appreciated. They work very hard.”
Jean said she hoped her donation would encourage others to give, too.
Jean was one of four people who helped start the EMS in Kosciusko County. She said the first one was Multi-Township EMS. “And it was Wayne Township, Etna Township, Plain Township. Three trustees who wanted to start the first EMS when the law changed way back when. The fellow that changed it (Royce), sat in my office, in the auditor’s office.” She said he was one of the first male nurses back then, and he actually helped put the EMS together.
The Mentone EMS came along in 1975, according to Marsha Scott, Four Way treasurer. She said they used a hearse from the funeral home for a while until they were able to get an ambulance.
Moyer said Four Way covers Franklin, Harrison and Seward townships in Kosciusko County and part of New Castle in Fulton County.
