Northshore Fire Department Fire Instructor Wendy Booth now has good example of how important CPR can be – she is alive today because of it.
“The system really works,” Booth said. “I’m a case that showed that everything worked for a reason. I was very fortunate and very lucky.”
A CPR training instructor from Bothell, Booth was at a friends’ home in Maple Valley on Christmas Day 2011 to have dinner with them when she suddenly collapsed.
Her friends, Matt and Katie Bill, realized something was wrong immediately and dialed 911. As they waited for the ambulance to arrive, Matt Bill, who had been taught CPR in high school, started to perform chest compressions.
The paramedics arrived five minutes later, though Matt Bill continued CPR as they prepared the defibrillator and eventually gave Booth one shock, restarting her heart. She was taken to the hospital, where they learned just how lucky she was to be alive.
Booth had suffered from a blockage in an artery, nicknamed a “widow maker” due to its high fatality rate. Although her heart had stopped, the chest compressions had kept the remaining oxygen in her blood circulating through her body, preventing both death and potentially devastating brain damage that can results from a lack of oxygen over an extended period of time.
“They saved her life,” said Jackie Booth, Wendy Booth’s mother. “There’s just no question.”
Jackie and her husband, Al, were at their home in Renton at the time and didn’t receive the news until hours later.
“Kate called us at around 3 p.m.,” Jackie Booth recalled. “My phone was in the bedroom so I didn’t find out about it until around 5 p.m. By then she was on life support. I was in shock.”
When they arrived at the hospital, they found friends, as well as their daughter’s colleagues from the fire department had gathered to show support.
“These people had given up their Christmas dinners to be there,” Jackie Booth said.
Ironically, although the incident was an emotional scare for her parents and friends, Wendy Booth does not remember anything from Christmas or the following days due to being in a coma for a day and the drugs she received after they discovered she also had staff pneumonia. As a result, said she feels indifferent about it.
“It’s still kind of a little surreal because I don’t have the emotional attachment to the situation,” she said. “The whole trauma of hearing that I’m not make it or have brain damage with the lack of oxygen, or I might have some trauma; I came out of it pretty much unscathed with the exception of skipping a few beats. I have vague memories of people visiting me in the hospital. I don’t even know whether it was the day or the day after. I have a vague memory of the days beforehand.”
Wendy Booth was eventually discharged from the hospital later that week on Friday, Dec. 30, and was working again nine days after the incident. While she has yet to teach a CPR class since, she said she plans on mentioning it. At the same time, she credited the fast response from paramedics for saving her life as well.
“I think it’s just adds to the benefit of knowing that at least in King County that we’re so lucky to live in this area,” she said. “Matt hadn’t taken CPR since he was in ninth grade and he jumped on it and went from memory. It that just getting the aid car and everyone getting there so quickly is the benefit of King county. It’s only going to add to the story.”
Though Matt Bill used primarily chest compressions, Booth said she still teaches breathing as a part of CPR.
“It’s ultimate the fastest way to keep people viable,” she said. “But if you come across someone you don’t know you can do chest compression and save a life, in theory.”
