Saved From Very Close Call, She’s Glad He Was Close By

Saved From Very Close Call, She’s Glad He Was Close By By Martha Slater

Denise Carr is a very lucky woman who is very grateful to be alive.

On Monday, June 15, Carr, an LPN who lives in Stockbridge, took an antibiotic for an ailment before she left home, then went to work as a caregiver at the Bethel home of retired attorney Norman Case.

Soon after arriving, Carr began to suffer a severe reaction to the medication, vomiting, and then passing out.

“I smashed my face on the bathroom sink when I fell,” Carr recalled. “When I regained consciousness, I saw blood on the floor, but I couldn’t even raise my head or get up. I called out to Mr. Case, who was in the next room, to call 9-1-1.”

Carr said that Case, who is 92 and blind, was “very calm. He dialed the phone and had to stay on the line for quite a while. An ambulance from WRVA arrived in about 10 minutes or so.”

Although her blood pressure was a life-threateningly low 50/0, she was still conscious, and the EMTs struggled to get an IV into her arm to raise her blood pressure.

“I kept asking them if I was dying,” Carr said. “It took quite a while to stabilize me and get me into the ambulance, and when I tried to sit up, I passed out again!”

Carr was transported to Gifford Medical Center in Randolph, where she was treated and spent the night.

“Once the antibiotic was out of my system, I felt fine and was able to go home,” she said. “I’m still not back at work because I broke some ribs when I fell, but I’ll go back as soon as they heal. Mr. Case and the EMTs, Alan and John, did such a great job and I’m so thankful for them—they truly saved my life!”