A New Life and a Second Chance

Every once in a while, you hear a story that reminds you just how extraordinary healthcare can be. And when that story happens right here at GBMC, it’s something I want everyone to know about.

Recently, People magazine revisited a story from 2021, when our team saved a woman’s life under circumstances that are almost impossible to imagine.

Kathy Patten had come to GBMC to be with her daughter, Stacey Fifer, who was in labor with Kathy’s eighth grandchild. What should have been one of the happiest days of their lives suddenly took a terrifying turn.

Kathy began feeling unwell. As our staff prepared to take her to the Emergency Department, she went into cardiac arrest. Her heart stopped beating.

And here’s where this story becomes truly remarkable.

A team of 30 to 40 GBMC clinicians from Emergency Medicine, Critical Care and beyond came together in a back hallway of Labor and Delivery to try to save her. Not an emergency room. Not a space designed for this kind of care. A hallway.

For approximately 45 minutes, Kathy had no heartbeat. Our team performed CPR, administered medications, and kept working to bring her back. At one point, nurses were writing medications and treatments directly on the walls to keep track of everything.

They didn’t give up.

And then Kathy’s heart started beating again.

Meanwhile, just down the hall, Stacey was going through a difficult labor of her own. She would give birth to a baby girl, Alora, who spent two days in our NICU.

Think about that for a moment. A daughter bringing a new life into the world while her own mother’s life hung in the balance.

And while our clinical teams worked to save Kathy, another member of our team was looking after Stacey. In the video, Stacey recalls how a chaplain came in to give her updates about her mother.  

I can’t imagine what Stacey was going through. But imagine how much it must have meant to have someone there to keep her informed and offer some comfort. That’s care, too.

Kathy went on to receive cardiac intervention at St. Joseph’s and make an extraordinary recovery. Several weeks later, she was finally able to hold the granddaughter she’d come to GBMC to meet.

If you haven’t seen the People video, I really encourage you to take a few minutes. It’s an amazing story.

But what stands out to me isn’t just the outcome. It’s how our team made it possible.

Consider what had to happen that day. Dozens of clinicians from different disciplines, working together in an unexpected location, making critical decisions under enormous pressure. The training, the teamwork, the communication, the ability to adapt when things weren’t going as planned. None of that happens by accident. That kind of teamwork is practiced, in places like our Simulation Innovation Learning Center, which, fittingly, is where People chose to film.

And remember, this was 2021, when our healthcare teams were already facing enormous challenges from the pandemic.

Dr. Dov Frankel, one of the emergency physicians who helped save Kathy, recently spoke with People about what was going through his mind. He knew she was there for the birth of her granddaughter, and he was determined to give her the chance to meet that baby.

I love that detail. Because he wasn’t just thinking about the person in cardiac arrest. He was thinking about the mother and grandmother, and the family waiting for her.

Our refreshed mission says, “At every stage of life, we provide the care that we would want for our loved ones.”

I can’t think of many stories that illustrate that more literally. Here were three generations of one family, in the same hospital, at the same time, depending on our people for care. That is Care Built Around You, in a single afternoon.

I know not every day in healthcare comes with a story this dramatic. Most of the remarkable things you do for patients and families will never make the national news. But they matter just as much to the people experiencing them.

I also want to share something Dr. Frankel said when Kathy returned to GBMC in 2021 to thank the people who saved her. He told her, “I don’t say you’re welcome, I say thank you.”

That says a lot about the people who work here.

To Dr. Frankel and the dozens of team members from the ED, Critical Care, Labor and Delivery, the NICU and beyond who cared for Kathy, Stacey and baby Alora that day, thank you. And thank you to Clinton Noll and our Simulation Innovation Learning Center team for helping People share this story with a much larger audience.

I wasn’t here in 2021, but stories like this make me incredibly proud to be part of GBMC HealthCare today.

Please take a few minutes to watch the video. I think you’ll be every bit as moved as I was.