• Baylor nursing grads’ quick actions save lives at two Dallas-area schools

    Jessica Haas (left) and Annie Young (right)

    This holiday season, two Dallas-area families are celebrating stories that have a happy ending thanks to the life-saving actions of two school nurses — each of whom graduated from Baylor’s Louise Herrington School of Nursing.

    In two separate incidents, Jessica Haas, BSN ’97, the school nurse at Wallace Elementary in Richardson, and Annie Young, BSN ’06, the school nurse at Lake Highlands Elementary in Dallas, came quickly to the aid of individuals who had collapsed on their campuses and provided life-saving care when their actions counted most.

    On Nov. 15, Haas was walking out of her school when she realized a woman needed help. Sarah Maupin, the mother of a Wallace student, was leaving a parent-teacher meeting when she went into cardiac arrest and collapsed outside the school. Haas quickly apprised the situation, grabbed an automated external defibrillator (AED) — a device used to revive people suffering from cardiac arrest — and came to the woman’s aid. Haas’ critical care in the immediate moments after Maupin’s collapse saved her life and likely kept her out of intensive care.

    Less than two weeks later, 13-year old Joe Krejci was running in his P.E. class at Lake Highlands Middle School when he collapsed on the school track. His coach called 911 and sent the fastest students to get the school nurse. “Something in my gut,” Young says, “told me to stop and get the AED.” Krejci wasn’t breathing and did not have a pulse when she arrived, but the teamwork of Young (providing chest compressions and CPR) and a school coach (who applied the AED pads to Krejci) were critical in the moments leading up to the ambulance’s arrival. At the hospital, doctors found his pulse restored and diagnosed Krejci with an abnormal heart rhythm, providing him with a pacemaker to treat it.

    School nurses are often unsung heroes of their institutions, but Haas and Young are justifiably being recognized for their heroism. For nurses throughout the Baylor family, reacting in moments like these is simply what they’ve been trained to do.

    “God put me in the right place at the right time,” Haas says. “My years of experience just kicked in. With God’s help, I was there and the AED was so close.”

    Sic ’em, Jessica and Annie!