AIC Nursing Student Saves Her Father’s Life

Life changed dramatically for AIC nursing student Bonnie Shallbetter and her dad, John Shallbetter, on April 25, 2015. Arriving home late that evening, Bonnie responded to her mother Mary’s urgent call for help. She raced upstairs to find her father unconscious and unresponsive in his recliner. He presented with an agonal breathing pattern. Bonnie knew her dad was in trouble.

At that moment, Bonnie went from daughter to nurse and her training kicked in. She performed a sternal rub (a medical intervention test for consciousness) to try and bring her dad around. He regained consciousness briefly allowing her time to call 911. Confused and dazed John replied, “Bonnie, I was just sleeping”, but within seconds he tensed up and turned purple.

While Bonnie knew that CPR is best done with the patient on the floor, at 112 pounds she found it impossible to move her 6 foot 2 inch, 240 pound father even with her mother’s assistance. Unable to find a pulse, she began chest compressions in the recliner. Bonnie could hear instructor Dina Ditmar’s voice in her head saying, “Lock your arms. Use your body. [There is] no time to get upset. Just keep going!” Bonnie performed three rounds of CPR while waiting for the ambulance which arrived within minutes.

Once paramedics arrived, Bonnie stayed at her dad’s head to ensure his airway remained open. Defibrillated eight times, paramedics ultimately got a regular heartbeat but John remained unconscious. “All I could do was say, ‘Daddy, I’m here. Stay with me.’”

Once at the hospital, her father was wheeled away. Bonnie recalled, “The situation was now out of my control which was the hardest part. I call my dad Superman. He’s a big dude, muscular. He’s always outside doing yard work and building stuff. He’s never sick.”

It was impossibly hard for Bonnie to grasp that her father’s life hung in the balance as each hour passed. He was unconscious, pale, intubated, and wrapped in a cooling blanket to preserve brain function. Meanwhile, she fretted that she had done something wrong while trying to help her dad initially.

On the contrary. The doctors assured Bonnie that CPR administered within the first three minutes of his heart attack was critical to saving her father’s life. Without early intervention, getting her dad back might not have been a possibility.

A cardiac catheter revealed four blockages. Later that week John received bypass surgery. Following his hospital recovery and a brief stay in cardiac rehab, John went home – remarkably within just two weeks.

“This experience confirmed this is what I am supposed to be doing”, says Bonnie. She credits her medical-surgical rotation in the 2014 fall semester with helping put her classroom experience to real life use. Looking ahead to spring semester 2016, Bonnie will be studying cardiac rhythms. As Assistant Professor of Nursing Ellen Furman quipped, “She’ll be teaching the class!”

In reflecting back on the event and her relationship with her father, Bonnie said, “My dad has been my rock through nursing school. I would never have thought my super active, superman of a dad would go down like that. “That Saturday night, I bolted out of the house without saying anything. Now, I can’t leave the house without saying ‘I love you.”

Very early in her career, Bonnie gained first-hand experience in the profoundly gratifying work of the nursing profession. Looking forward, she envisions a career in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. “I love kids. The work will be intense but rewarding.”