Kammie Schuhmann
October 2023
Kammie
Schuhmann
,
RN, BSN
ER
Mercy Hospital
Durango
,
CO
United States

 

 

 

Kammie went far above and beyond for this patient. This was an awesome team effort. S, J, and N helped. Everyone worked together to make sure this family could focus on healing and not worry about tying up loose ends from their vacation.
A patient was brought to Mercy ED. He was visiting from Texas with his special needs son and was on a raft trip. The patient was brought to the ED via ambulance after an incident caused him to have chest pain. Kammie Schuhmann was the primary nurse. The patient was emergently flown to Denver for an aortic dissection involving the ascending and descending artery all the way to the kidney. His son flew with him. He arrived at St. Anthony's around 10:00 pm.

The following day, Kammie was back at 6 am. She worked closely with our hot seat tech, S, to reach the patient's wife, who she knew was flying to Denver from Texas the night before. She wanted to know how the wife, family, and patient were doing. The wife was very upset and overwhelmed. Kammie asked if she could help with anything as far as getting the patient's luggage back up to him. After getting off the phone with her, Kammie jumped into action to help relieve some of this stress for the patient and family. Kammie contacted MW rafting company to let them know the rental wet suits for the patient and his son were here. The manager of the rafting company then informed her that the patient's rental car was still at MW, and he had the keys.

After figuring out which rental company the car was from, Kammie (with help from S and N from ED registrations) called to find out where to drop the car off. Kammie coordinated with the MW manager, who gave N a ride to the rental car to return it. Kammie also remembered the patient telling her he was staying at a condo. She called the manager and explained that the patient had been flown out on a medical emergency. The manager agreed to have the patient and son's bags packed up and shipped back to their home in Texas. Kammie called the wife back that afternoon and told her that everything had been taken care of and she could just focus on her husband and child. She was very grateful and thankful. Kammie went far above and beyond for this patient. This was an awesome team effort. S, J, and N helped. Everyone worked together to make sure this family could focus on healing and not worry about tying up loose ends from their vacation.