Call it fate. Last fall paramedics just happened to be passing a local high school when they noticed people running from the stadium during a football game.
It turned out to be a worst-case scenario: gun shots heard at the game. But like the heroes they are, the crew responded and ran into the stadium to help. The crew was later honored in a “Call of the Quarter” ceremony hosted by Wellington Regional Medical Center, where they were reunited with the patient they helped rescue that day.
“They were my angels,” says Kimberly Briard, who was at the game to watch her daughter on the varsity cheer squad when the chaos broke out. She fell down in a narrow ramp while rushing to get to her daughter and couldn’t get up. “People were running over me,” she says. When the paramedics arrived, they took Briard to Wellington Regional, reassuring her all the way and keeping in touch with her husband to let him know she was okay.
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Orthopedic surgeon Nicholas Sama, MD, explains that Briard fractured her femur bone near her hip and needed a total hip replacement. Learning she’d need surgery was scary, but Briard was comforted by her caring, professional medical team. “The nurses were there around the clock, they were all awesome… Physical therapy was amazing. Everything from the cafeteria bringing up my meals to doctors coming in to check on me was amazing.” Dr. Sama praised the actions of the paramedics, who went to the school not knowing what they might encounter. “If you ask any of them, they would say, ‘It’s our job,’” says Greenacres Fire Rescue Assistant Fire Chief Brian Fuller. “But in this case, it wasn’t in their jurisdiction, and they could easily have mistaken the commotion for something else and just drove back to the station. However, their instincts told them otherwise and they didn’t hesitate to act.”
Briard is grateful to everyone who helped her get through this event, both physically and emotionally. “From the moment they got the stretcher to the moment I was discharged from the hospital, I felt safe.”
Wellington Regional is proud to work closely with local rescue crews.