CPR lessons help save grandmother's life

MOSES LAKE — Amy Rohrich learned CPR as part of the parenting classes she took prior to the birth of her daughter Eliana Brooks. The instructors recommended learning the techniques, both for infants and adults, just in case. Amy said she agreed. “Better to know than not know it,” she said.

She definitely was right about that.

Amy lives with her grandmother Sherril Lyons, and lately Lyons’ health was prompting some concern. She’d been up and down, better some days, worse other days. But “I didn’t know it was that bad,” she said.

That was right up until the morning of Sept. 1, around 4:20 a.m. or so. Amy said she came into the kitchen to find her grandma having some trouble. “She had collapsed at the table and she had her head on the table.”

Lyons said she doesn’t remember much after that. “I woke up the next day at the hospital.”

Amy, however, was faced with a crisis. She didn’t know it then, but Lyons was having a heart attack, complicated with a possible stroke. She called 911 – even though her grandmother objected a little bit. The dispatcher summoned the EMS crew. In the meantime, “he just told me to start doing CPR, 30 (chest) compressions, and he told me not to stop until they got there.”

As anyone with CPR training knows there’s a rhythm to it, in this case 2 breaths, then the 30 chest compressions. Lyons had passed out; “Grandma, can you hear me?” Amy remembered asking, but got no response.

She asked her grandma to blink her eyes if she could hear, but Lyons didn’t respond. “Pretty scary,” Amy said, but she kept on with the CPR – 2 breaths, 30 compressions, 2 breaths, 30 compressions.

“I was trying to keep it calm without panicking. Well, I was panicking, but I was trying to stay calm.” The EMS crew arrived and started unpacking equipment, and Amy kept going until they could take over.

Lyons said she believes Amy saved her life.

Sometimes the chest compression required with CPR will leave a patient with a broken bone, and as a person gets older their bones usually become for fragile. Given those two facts, Amy thought she might’ve broken one of Lyons’ ribs, but she didn’t. “So I was doing it right,” she said.

Amy is enrolled in the medical careers programs at Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center; ‘I want to be an ER nurse. I’ve always wanted to do nursing, since maybe seventh grade.”

The first day of classes was Sept. 1, and Amy made it on time.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.