... we had a patient scheduled for an EGD. The gentleman failed to show at the appointed time in Same Day Surgery. Anita Bornhorst was the charge nurse and the nurse who was assigned to his care was Jeff Emrick. They tried several times to reach him thinking perhaps he had slept through his alarm. It was documented in his chart that Shelby County Transit was supposed to pick the patient up at 630 AM. Anita called to see if they had picked him up. They said "he did not come out and they walked around the house but did not see anything." Because this patient was a diabetic and had been NPO since midnight, Jeff and Anita persisted in searching the computer for a relative. When Anita called the son (who lived out of state) he was very thankful someone called him. The son returned a call to Anita thirty minutes later and thanked her for calling because when the EMS squad arrived the patient was unconscious. This same patient returned approximately 5 weeks later for his procedure. He told the story of a nurse that called his son and had she not done so he "would have died." The patient wanted to thank the nurses that cared to call.

What started as just trying to get a patient in for his procedure ended up saving a life due to the persistence and dedication of two nurses who Cared Without Limits.