Our consultants place hundreds of travel nurses each year who in turn care for thousands of patients. We often hear stories from our providers about how fortunate they were to help in life-threatening situations while on assignment with RNnetwork. Below are three examples of ways travel nurses make a difference:
Quick thinking to save a baby’s life
Registered nurse Toni Crum visually assessed a new mom and newborn as she began her shift and quickly realized that something was wrong with the baby — and the low oxygen levels confirmed her fear.
She rushed the baby to the newborn intensive care unit, where the neonatologist determined that air had accumulated in the area between the baby’s lungs and chest wall, causing one lung to collapse. The other was about to collapse as well.
Fortunately, thanks to Toni’s intuition, doctors saved the baby’s life. She went home with her parents shortly afterward.
“That moment was the highlight of my career,” Toni says. “If I had ignored that baby or gone in on a second or third round instead of checking on her first, she probably wouldn’t have made it.”
Learn more about Toni in this post.
Responding to the Texas fertilizer plant explosion
When nurse Benita Johnson heard the news about the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, just 10 miles away from where she was on assignment at the time, she threw on her scrubs and drove to the area to help.
“I grew up with many of the people who live in West and knew that some of the people I would be helping were my friends,” she says. “But my main concern was making sure that I did everything in my power to help all of the people injured, physically and mentally.”
Benita began helping at the initial triage on the football field and then, when authorities evacuated the field due to the threat of more explosions, helped set up a makeshift mobile hospital at a community center on the other side of town.
Watch of video of Benita and her recruiter, Shanna, talking about the experience.
Providing critical care to mothers and babies in rural Arizona
The hospital where Rachael Steed was on assignment frequently treated patients from an Indian reservation who couldn’t receive the care they needed at the small facility there. When they learned that a 38-week pregnant woman was arriving from the reservation via helicopter and had already lost two liters of blood, Rachael was prepared for the worst.
She began closely monitoring the mother and discovered that the baby’s heart rate had changed.
“I noticed a condition called sinusoidal rhythm, which is really rare. I’d only seen in it books,” Rachael explains. “It usually means that the baby is anemic and will die. I called the doctor, and he was there in five minutes. We had the baby out in ten.”
Read Rachael’s full story in this post.
Interested in learning more about travel nursing? Call us for more information at 800.866.0407 or view today’s job openings.