At 6am in the morning, my 84 year old med-surg patient climbed out of bed and her alarm was going off, so a PCA and 1 RN entered the room to assist her back to bed and make sure she was alright. Upon entering the room, we found that the patient was very anxious, very combative and standing by her doorway. I had to yell for help to get the patient back to her bed safely. My Charge RN and several other nurses came to assist us with the patient. As we were putting her back to bed, Kristin looked down and noticed that the veins in her neck were protruding out and she stated there is something wrong with her. Kristin took her vitals and the HR was reading over 200 beats/ min. She remained calm and told me to grab the crash cart and put the heart monitor on the patient quickly so we could get an accurate reading, then told another RN to call a rapid response. Patient was finally stabilized and moved to ICU.

I believe that Kristin's quick thinking saved my patient that morning. What looked like a typical confused patient ended up being a very sick patient, but she saw more to the picture. If it weren't for her staying calm and using her amazing critical thinking skills, my patient would have died that day. I think she deserves the DAISY Award and I want to let everyone know, especially my team that she is a very caring and an outstanding nurse. I am so happy that I get to work with her on my team.

Kristin is a great leader who goes out on a limb to help her fellow co-workers and never once complains about it. She is a true example of a great leader and all nurses need to follow her path.