Elevator signage helps one colleague save her mother's life

Pam Paulsen has been working at Swedish for nearly a decade. A part of our trusted team of contractors, Pam serves as — what she affectionately calls — the “pump police.” Her job is managing mobile medical equipment, locating, distributing and organizing equipment for use on the units. This position is one that takes her all over the hospital, in and out of units, back and forth in hallways and up and down in elevators.

Pam has been in the west elevators hundreds of times. As a way to pass the time, she often looks around at the signage in the elevators, including those that are part of the Swedish stroke education program. “I would just ride the elevators all the time and look at the wall. I’d always thought that the symptoms of a stroke and a heart attack were the same,” Pam explains. “But as I read the mural in the elevators over the years, I found that they aren’t the same.” The information — BE FAST (balance, eyes, face, arm, speech, time to call 911) — seeped into her brain and was ready for her at the most critical moment.

While Pam lives in southeast Aurora with her recently wed daughter and son-in-law, she has been visiting her 87-year-old mother in Frederick every few weeks. One recent Saturday morning, Pam was visiting with her mom. About 90 minutes into her visit, her mom started acting strangely. “My mom said, ‘I just feel like something is not right.’ Then she said, ‘my left side’ and the second she said that my ears perked up. Then she mentioned tingling and her speech started to slur. I immediately got on the phone and called 911. From the first sign I saw of the stroke to the ER was less than an hour,” Pam details.

Thanks to Pam’s quick assessment of her mother’s symptoms, her mom was able to get appropriate care for her stroke in a timely manner. Pam’s mom now is being discharged from a rehab facility and, though she has some remaining deficits from the event, Pam is grateful for the education within the walls of Swedish that helped to save her mother’s life. Pam encourages, “It’s important for everyone to be aware of stroke symptoms because you never know.”

BE FAST

• B - Balance: Ask the person if they have balance problems
• E - Eyes: Ask the person if they have loss of vision or blurriness in one or both eyes
• F - Face: Ask the person to smile, does one side of the face droop downward?
• A - Arm: Can the person raise both arms?
• S - Speech: Is speech slurred or confusing?
• T - Time: Time to call 9-1-1 immediately.