Wingmen in right place, right time save lives Published Nov. 2, 2010 By Steve Pivnick 8st Medical Group Public Affiars KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Being at the right place at the right time probably saved Capt. Scott Thallemer's life. The 81st Surgical Operations Squadron surgical nurse was on temporary duty at the University of Maryland R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center Sept. 6 when two fellow nurses saved him from certain death. "I was out running PT with two ICU (intensive care unit) nurses from Wilford Hall Medical Center at about 5 p.m. when, without warning, I went down face first into the street," the captain said. The next thing he recalled was regaining consciousness as he was being placed into an ambulance. Since he obviously didn't know what he had experienced, the following was provided by one of the nurses credited with saving his life, Capt. Annemarie Nesbit. The other was Capt. Katie Knott. Captain Nesbit wrote in a report to her supervisor, "Captain Thallemer, Captain Knott and I were all out for a two-mile run. This was not above and beyond any of our capabilities. We had all just met a few days before at the beginning of CSTARS (Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills). "As we were nearing the end of the run, we were going through a crowded crosswalk. I was just ahead of them moving around some people when I heard Captain Knott scream, 'Annie!' It was a scream that instantly made you know something was wrong. I turned around a saw Captain Knott sitting on the ground holding Captain Thallemer. "(He) had fallen to the ground, striking his head on the curb. Captain Knott was just in front of him and she looked back over her shoulder just as he was collapsing. She turned him over and held his head in the critical C-spine position that maintains an open airway. I yelled at a bystander to help me lift him onto the sidewalk. "At his side we assessed him, called his name to no response and, realizing he had no pulse, started CPR. We maintained this position of holding C-spine and continuous CPR for over 10 minutes. We know this because we asked a bystander to call out the time to us in one-minute increments. "We were yelling at the top of our lungs for an AED (automated external defibrillator). I felt a lady gawking at me and I looked up directly at her and yelled, 'We are in the Inner Harbor! There are a million restaurants and police all around! Go get me an AED!' She took off and retrieved the public-access AED. By this time he was the worst shade of blue and gray I have seen and foaming at the mouth. I placed the AED; it advised shock. It was at that moment I looked at Captain Knott and, for the first time in over 13 years as a nurse, I can say I was truly scared. I really thought Scott was going to die. "He was shocked and I immediately resumed CPR. I only stopped when after about two more minutes he said, 'OWWWWW.' I was so relieved and amazed that he was awake and talking. He actually was trying to get up and said he felt fine! That was when Captain Knott said, 'Boy! You were just shocked! You earned yourself a C-collar, a backboard and a trip to the ER!' "While I am very proud to serve and very proud to be a nurse, being a Wingman is what I would emphasize. "I have been a nurse for more than 13 years -- over six of those in acute critical care -- and in the Air Force for less than one year! I have been trained to instinctively act when a critical event takes place. But it is times like these that push us to remember that nothing can move forward until the basics are accomplished. We were not in a hospital, a clinic or even in the field with any equipment to help us. We had our hands, our strength, our hearts and a Wingman who needed us. I cannot express how amazing it was to see Captain Thallemer vibrant and joking around literally moments after we had shocked him and broken a few ribs. Nothing will ever be the same." Captain Thallemer said Captains Nesbit and Knott stayed with him in the ER and followed him to the cardiac cath lab. "The doc asked me if I minded if they watched the procedure through the window," Captain Thallemer said. "I told him, 'We're here for training so absolutely, yes!' They didn't leave my side until I went into the ICU (following the procedure)." He explained that in the cath lab, the doctor needed to locate the blockages and see what was going on with his heart. "The doctor went in with an endoscopic bypass through three small incisions in the right side of my chest," he said. "He took the right mammary artery and placed it on my heart to bypass the congested coronary artery. I also received an internal defibrillator and a stent for another clogged artery." The captain remained hospitalized for 14 days because of an infection that developed on the site where the ambulance EMTs had inserted an IV. "I would have been there for four days otherwise," he observed. After another stent was placed in an artery Oct. 4, Captain Thallemer returned to Keesler Oct. 6. Once back here, "Our guys checked things out so they would know how to treat me. Other than cardiac rehab, that's about it; just getting back to my baseline. That's required a lot of treadmill and bike exercise to get my heart back to where it was before. I'm the youngest guy in the rehab class. Everyone else is between 70 and 90 years old." Recalling the entire episode, Captain Thallemer said, "I can't get over how lucky I was. I'm glad there were two nurses there who had just completed ICU training. They started CPR probably within 10 seconds (of the event). Having to come to my aid in the middle of the street without any medical equipment was remarkable. The doc said before doing the procedure they saved my life." Ironically, Captain Thallemer was credited with lifesaving actions himself while attending Squadron Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., Feb. 24 to April 15. "We were a couple of weeks into the course when a classmate called to say another classmate had come out of the gym feeling kind of dizzy. I stopped by and did an assessment. I found her neurological signs all over the place and called 911. An ambulance responded and took her to the hospital. The captain (a 27-year-old missile officer from F.E. Warren AFB, Wyo.) was diagnosed with arterovenous malformation causing bleeding into her cerebellum. "She needed to be transferred to a hospital that could treat her -- the University of South Alabama Medical Center in Mobile -- but due to bad weather, she couldn't be flown there. She had to be taken by ambulance from Montgomery to Mobile and I rode with her. She was taken to the ER where they did tests and an MRI. In the meantime, I notified her command and her husband. The doctor told her she had to go to surgery and had a very slim chance of survival. She asked me what she should do (again, Captain Thallemer is an OR nurse) and I told her she needed to be there for her family. She was immediately taken into surgery. "Her husband arrived six hours later and I had to tell him she had already had the surgery. I spent 30 hours straight talking with her family and commanders. Thankfully, she recovered with few side effects. If she hadn't been taken to the hospital and had the surgery, she would have gone to sleep and never awakened." The captain remarked, "To have both these events occur in a relatively short time span is pretty remarkable. In either case, if I hadn't been there for her or if those two nurses hadn't been there for me, neither one of us would have survived." Captain Thallemer, who hopes to return to work this month, believes someone was looking out for him. "I had changed the date I was going to attend CSTARS three times. Obviously, someone wanted me there at that time with the right people. However, what I want people to take away from these experiences is for them to know how important your Wingman is!"