LAS VEGAS (KVVU/Gray News) — A woman in Las Vegas reunited Friday with the nurse who saved her life when she suffered a medical emergency during a hockey game.
Jeannie Cunningham attended a Vegas Golden Knights hockey game against Chicago with her friend Linda Fucci when she suddenly collapsed during the first period.
“We watched the first period and we were going to go to the ladies room, and she [Fucci] suddenly said that I looked really tired,” Cunningham said. “I could feel myself sliding down the pole onto the steps and I did it in slow motion, I actually felt myself, and some guy started yelling I was having a seizure.”
Cunningham said she had never experienced anything like this before. She collapsed and became unresponsive, leaving Fucci in a panic.
Also at the game was nurse Susie Teems. She saw Cunningham collapse and immediately jumped into action.
“Then Superwoman came, jumped over fans, and she was… the CPR… [she] was so fast. She took total control,” Fucci said of Teems.
Teems was not in a cape or even in her scrubs that night, but still dropped everything to help when she saw Cunningham on the floor.
“I just looked at her, and I saw that she was agonal breathing. She was staring straight up, and then I felt for a pulse, and she didn’t have one,” Teems said.
Teems performed CPR until an automated external defibrillator arrived.
“It did take a while to get the AED on her. Just doing CPR. That’s what was amazing is basic CPR and AED saved her,” Teems said.
After Teems stepped in to save Cunningham, first responders took her to the hospital, where doctors told her she had gone into cardiac arrest.
After Cunningham recovered, she and Fucci wanted to find the person who saved her life.
“I just made a little post on Facebook, you know, thank you to the people … whoever helped my friend in a medical emergency. That’s all I wrote,” Fucci said.
Teems eventually saw the post and reached out.
“I said, ‘Well, give her my number. I want to talk to her,’” Teems said.
The three women have now formed a lasting bond through the life-saving experience.
“Come to a person’s aid because you can do something to help another person,” Cunningham said. “The gratitude that I have for them from the depths of my heart, from my working heart now.”
During their recent meeting, Teems gave Cunningham a new Golden Knights jersey to replace the one that was torn during CPR the night she collapsed.
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