MCC employees quick thinking saves life of student
Sarah Evans
On Tues. Jan. 18, in a tap dancing class, the life of Pete Poolen was saved by the quick actions made by three brave women. Before the dancing even began, Nyla Crocket, administrator in the Dean’s office, caught Poolen before he hit the ground. Poolen passed out due to severe cardiac arrest.
“He was standing next to me. filling out our paper work for the first class night. He just buckled,” Crocket said. “The look in his face. I guess snapped us into (emergency).”
That is when Mary Wall, tap dancing instructor, rushed over to start CPR compressions. She had just renewed her CPR license the Tuesday before.
“I checked for a pulse and there wasn’t any. I instructed a student to call 911. I was on my third set (of compressions) when (Crocket) got back with the AED (defibrillator),” Wall said.
Crocket had no trouble finding where the defibrillator was since she had just taken a class in the Fitness Center.
“I immediately put the defibrillator on in the right places. I guess they were in the right places because it worked. He was literally up off the floor with that shock,” Crocket stated.
After using the defibrillator on Poolen, Wall continued to do CPR until Cassie Dotson, a young student working in the cafeteria, lent a helping hand.
“We had the doors open, and she was walking by. She came in and said, ‘I’m a lifeguard, would you like me to take over,’ and she was probably on her second or third set when he gasped and started breathing again,” Wall said.
After eight years of having Poolen in her class, Wall expressed that she would not have let him die.
“I just started class. I was tired, and I guess I hadn’t slept very well a couple nights. I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary,” said Poolen about the unpredictability of this scary event.
Poolen will be looking forward to dancing as soon as his body heals.
“The doctors said I could dance. Not tomorrow, but pretty soon,” Poolen said.
