Danielle Braden-Moll, Adult Medicine and Endocrinology Specialists
Danielle Braden-Moll is a certified diabetes educator at CoxHealth. She’s also a first-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
“It’s a form of self-defense and fighting,” says Braden-Moll. “We’re taught to avoid problematic situations but we’re also taught how to protect ourselves and to use focus and concentration so we can respond appropriately in different situations.”
One of those situations occurred while Braden-Moll was at a black belt training class at Mid-America Tae Kwon Do in Republic. One of the instructors was 46-year old Dave Gordon from Lamar.
“We were working out pretty hard,” says Gordon. “I started feeling numbness in my fingers. I sat down for about 10-15 minutes and it went away. I got back up and started working out and then I started feeling numbness in the left side of my body.”
Braden-Moll and others in the class encouraged Gordon to sit down again. His condition continued to worsen.
“We finally convinced him to let us take him to get medical help. He got up and took two steps and started to collapse,” says Jay Gillispie, owner of MTA-Republic, who called out to the group for anyone who had a current certification in CPR.
Braden-Moll had just been recertified eight weeks earlier in a Basic Life Support class at Cox. She says Gordon didn’t have a pulse and about 30 seconds later he stopped breathing.
“He had bitten his tongue when he fell so he had blood in his mouth when I initiated CPR,” she says. “I had no protective devices, but you make a choice and the choice was to save this man’s life.”
Gordon had experienced sudden death, a total blockage in the left chamber of his heart which supplies blood to the rest of his body, a condition known as the widow maker because the vast majority of people do not survive.
Braden-Moll continued to do CPR until Cox paramedics arrived. Gordon was shocked with a defibrillator but remained unresponsive. He was finally revived after leaving the center. He received a stent and has made a full recovery.
“Five days after this happened, my granddaughter was born,” says Gordon.
“I never would have gotten to see her if it weren’t for Danielle and all of the others who saved my life that day.”
“To be honest, I always found it annoying to go back and have to be recertified in CPR,” says Braden-Moll. “But because of that simple training, that simple education, this man is alive today.”
Amanda Eddington, Child Life
Amanda Eddington is a child life specialist at Cox South. Her job is to help children cope with the hospitalization experience, but at times she’s called on to help families cope with the loss of a child.
Eddington is being honored as a Prestigious Partner for her actions in one of those circumstances.
“When I came in on that Monday, I knew about the patient who came to us on Saturday,” says Eddington. “On Sunday the family had determined to take this patient off of life support.”
Child life specialists in Pediatrics create memory boxes for families when a death occurs. The box contains items that represent the child including a lock of hair, handprints and foot and hand molds. It also contains a journal for the family.
“It helps to start the grieving process,” says Sue Midcap, Pediatrics assistant nurse manager. “It gives the family something to take home because they aren’t able to take their baby home.”
Child Life could not create a memory box on this occasion until after an autopsy was performed Monday. Amanda arranged to meet the medical examiner in the morgue afterward to collect the items for the box.
“I’ve only been in the morgue one other time,” says Eddington. “It’s not in my normal job description to be there but I knew that was something that needed to be done for that family.”
Eddington learned the family was staying at a hotel in Springfield. She went to the hotel that evening and delivered the memory box to the family.
“When I heard what Amanda had done I was extremely touched but I wasn’t surprised,” says Midcap. “A lot of people might have said, ‘Oh well, we didn’t get that done.’ But Amanda is really special and she took it upon herself to make sure that this got done.”
“I’m honored to get this award but this is just my job,” says Eddington. “Being a child life specialist is my job and helping families cope is my job. It’s not that I think I went above and beyond the call of duty, I just did what I had to do.”
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