Siena, 21 July 2023 – “Grandpa wasn’t good, more”. These are the words of Sara Ferragalli, the 118 nurse who helped the elderly gentleman, via telephone, to save the 1-year-old grandson ended up in cardiac arrest.
It’s 7pm on Thursday 20 July. From Monteoliveto, a fraction of San Gimignano (Siena), an elderly couple calls 118 because their grandson no longer answers. On the phone is Sara Ferragalli, operator of the Siena-Grosseto 118 Central. Immediately the nurse inquires about the conditions of the child and understands that it is a cardiac arrest from suffocation.
The nurse then begins to guide the grandfather in the cardiopulmonary resuscitation maneuvers. “I conveyed to my interlocutor everything that I would have done, with confidence. Without a visual reference, it’s hard to tell if the person is doing them correctly. For this, I have tried to be as specific as possible and to convey the right things to reduce the margin of error. I divided into micro-operations asking gradually if they had been performed. Grandpa wasn’t good, more. He was focused all the time, always connected with me. I understand that the baby had recovered from the change in his grandfather’s voice, which became more relaxed at one point”.
The child then, reached by Pegasus 1, was transported to Meyer of Florence. The conditions are good and he is hospitalized for short observation in the emergency room.
“It’s not the first time for me, it’s our job, – continues Feragalli, – we’re used to living in these situations, they’re ordinary. The extraordinary thing is to find such a collaborative interlocutor. In addition to guiding the cardiopulmonary resuscitation operations performed by me, the master nurse Michela Gronchi immediately activated the ambulance, after which, still wearing headphones with her grandfather, the technical operator Azzurra Cherubini kept in touch with the ambulance personnel to give him real-time information on the evolution of events. It’s a chain that worked in every part of it. We are used to it, we work like this: organised, all united and fast. Always”.