RSSQuintet of lifesavers to be honored
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YAKIMA, Wash. -- Turns out Ellen Davis has more guardian angels than she first thought.
A total of five people, not three as initially reported, provided critical lifesaving aid to the 69-year-old Zillah grandmother when she suffered a heart attack in the West Valley Walmart.
Ron Melcher, Yakima's deputy fire marshal, plans to honor those five people with a plaque at the Jan. 19 Yakima City Council meeting.
From store surveillance video and witness accounts, Melcher spent hours piecing together a timeline of the rush that saved Davis' life Nov. 27, the busy shopping day known as Black Friday.
Davis, a substitute schoolteacher, collapsed about 6 a.m.
Almost immediately she was surrounded by help. Off-duty nurses and firefighters who were shopping, a police officer working store security and Walmart employees all pitched in. Some of them performed CPR.
They kept Davis alive until the ambulance arrived nine minutes later. Her heart was revived with an electric shock en route to Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital.
Many others were also involved. One worker ran to fetch a first aid kit while other workers formed a human chain to give the rescue workers room to move. Of the many who worked to save Davis, three later checked on her at the hospital and met her family. They were featured in a Yakima Herald-Republic story Dec. 6.
Melcher chose a total of five individuals to single out for the awards:
* Stephanie Pruett, a Walmart employee who performed the first chest compressions on Davis.
* Sgt. Mike Henne of the Yakima Police Department, who was working as private security for Walmart and performed CPR.
* Tara Prescott, an off-duty Memorial Hospital registered nurse who performed CPR.
* Ed Vertrees, an off-duty Yakima Training Center firefighter who performed CPR.
* Sara Wisner, an off-duty registered nurse, who helped keep Davis' airway open during CPR and helped ambulance workers keep a tight seal on a respirator bag.
As far as she can tell, Davis has fully recovered from the incident, though she has a stent in her heart and her family teases her about brain damage.
"I am just about normal as far as that goes, but that's not saying a lot," she said with a laugh.
She appreciated all her rescuers' efforts, but they didn't surprise her.
"A lot of people, more than you realize, are willing to help people in any way they can," Davis said.
Do you repeatedly need to say "off duty"? Of course they are
off duty, they are at Walmart! Memorial didn't send a couple nurse down to Walmart to look for someone coding.
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