Group effort saves Amy
N
ov. 29 began like most Monday mornings in the Downing household in Kearney. Sisters Hadlea and Harper left for school. Parents Amy and Jason were enjoying coffee while their son, Hudson, got ready to begin his school day. The routine changed rapidly as a jolt of severe pain suddenly spread across Amy’s upper abdomen. After 22 years as a nurse, her medical training instinctively kicked in, and she began assessing her symptoms. Was she having a heart attack at age 45? Amy managed to tell Hudson to get his father. As Jason drove Amy to the emergency department at Kearney Regional Medical Center, she slipped in and out of consciousness. This Labor and Delivery nurse had cared for hundreds of babies and families during her five years in the hospital’s Maternity Care Center, but now she was about to become
Dr. Melissa Stade (left) performed life-saving surgery on Amy Downing, RN-C. 38
Summer 2022
the patient and experience the care and support of friends and medical co-workers herself. “The care was outstanding,” Amy recalls, “But it’s hard to put into words what it was like to go from being a nurse to switching gears to become the patient.” Need to act quickly There wasn’t much time to make that transition. Soon after Amy arrived at the ED, general surgeon Melissa Stade, MD, received an urgent call about her. Diagnostic tests were not revealing the cause of Amy’s symptoms, and she was becoming unstable. The last thing Amy would remember that day would be the voice of anesthesiologist Merlin Wehling, MD. “He kept me aware of all that was happening. It’s blurry but I remember him by the head of the bed, letting me know we were going to surgery.”
Amy is thankful for support from Dr. Merlin Wehling (left) and co-workers like Maternity Care Center nursing manager Dani Peisiger.
