Kudos to Discovery Middle School Nurse in Madison, Alabama

School nurses deserve a special place in our prayers. Certainly the nurse at Discovery Middle School on Hughes Road in Madison deserves to be called a hero. When she signed on for the job, I doubt she even considered the possibility of attending to a gunshot victim. Yet, by the accounts we have at this point, this is what she did and did well.

I don't know how much training this nurse had in emergency medicine, but unless she had worked previously as an EMT, probably not much. When she reached the scene of the shooting victim this afternoon, she had to make some decisions and make them quickly.

Emergency medicine uses the "ABC" rule. As she approached the wounded student, he would have probably been lying on his back. No matter the direction of a gunshot, a head wound will usually cause the victim to fall backward. Next she would have seen the blood surrounding his head. Using the "ABC" rule, she would have first ensured a patent airway. His chest would have been rising and falling, even with shallow breaths, so she would have known his airway was patent. Breathing, or respiration, is the second part--she would have ascertained this at the same time she checked the rise and fall of his chest.

The third part of the assessment is circulation. The flowing blood indicated that he needed pressure applied to the wound immediately, but that would have meant turning him over. Did he have a second wound she couldn't see? Had he damaged his spine in the fall? She had to consider these things, but still stop the blood flow. The Discovery Middle School nurse did all these things, from what little we have been told, and she obviously did them in a short period of time with throngs of traumatized students looking on.

If you know who your school nurse is, send her a note of appreciation next week. When the name of the Discovery Middle School nurse is published, I hope everyone realizes what a hero she was in a situation no one should have to face.