MAYSVILLE — Two Jones County EMTs saved the life of a Maysville woman last month.
Emergency Medical Technicians Mike Jones and William Hurley Jr. were presented with the American Heart Award, the heart-saver hero award and the CPR save citation bar at the Maysville City Council meeting earlier this month.
Jones and Hurley Jr. were presented the awards for their role in saving the life of Ann Meadows on July 12.
Meadows was at her home in Maysville when she began experiencing what she thought was an asthma attack. When her inhaler didn’t clear up her breathing, Meadows went to the bathroom to use a breathing machine to help. It was there her throat started to close up and she told her husband Kelvin to call the ambulance.
“It all happened so fast,” Meadows recalled this week.
Hurley and Jones — along with Maysville Fire Chief Michael Jordan — arrived a few minutes later to find Meadows not breathing and with a weak pulse. They pulled her out to a bed and, after one round of CPR, Jordan inserted a tube down her throat to ensure air got to her lungs.
Hurley and Jones then began CPR, alternating with each other at intervals between chest compressions and bagging — the process when an EMT put a mask over the patient’s mouth to inject air into the airways. While the EMTs attended personally to Meadows, Jordan called Jones County EMS and an Advance Life Support truck.
“He was getting everything we needed,” Hurley said.
After about 12 minutes, Meadows’ pulse began to strengthen, but Jones and Hurley continued to bag until the arrival of Jones EMS. Meadows was loaded and began the trip to Carolina East Hospital in New Bern. While en route, Meadows was transferred over to Craven Paramedics, who took her the rest of the way to the hospital.
Jordan was pleased with the actions of Jones and Hurley.
“I was really proud of what they did,” Jordan said. They acted quickly and got her going.”
After spending a few days in the hospital, Meadows was released, and a month and a half later, is doing fine. Meadows has several more visits to the doctor in the future to determine whether there are any lasting effects from what doctors determined was an allergic reaction to pork.
Meadows is thankful for the men she credits with saving her life.
“If they weren’t there, I probably wouldn’t be here today,” Medows said.
Noah Clark can be reached at 252-559-1073 or Noah.Clark@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @ nclark763