Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Thursday, August 07, 2008
Terry Rindfleisch: Giving credit to a pair of pool heroes
What’s nice about living in a medical community is nurses, doctors and other medical personnel are hanging out everywhere and can spring into action when needed.
It happens quite a bit.
A 3-year-old Holmen, Wis., boy was lucky that two Gundersen Lutheran employees, one an ER nurse, were there July 9 when he nearly drowned at Holmen’s aquatic center.
A reader called and wanted the record set straight to pay tribute to the two women who performed CPR on the boy after he was pulled unconscious from a 3-feet-deep section of the public pool.
The two women — Sara Kromke, a registered nurse in the ER, and Shelly Lorens, a medical assistant in urgent care — didn’t want publicity and only talked to me reluctantly.
Krom-ke said she was at the pool with her two children when she heard the lifeguard blow the whistle. A man lifted the boy out of the water.
“No one started CPR, so I knew it was up to me,” Kromke said. “He wasn’t breathing, so I started mouth-to-mouth and kept checking his heartbeat. Soon Shelly was at my side.
“I still couldn’t feel a heartbeat,” Kromke said. “I started compressions and Shelly did mouth-to-mouth. It was like we worked together for 100 years.”
The boy began spitting out water. The man who pulled him from the water had been praying.
“The little boy didn’t look good, but when he let out a cry, it was the best thing I’ve heard in my life,” Kromke said.
“I am a very thankful I knew what to do,” she said. “It’s different resuscitating someone out in the community. The ER is a very controlled environment and I have tools around me.”
Holmen First Responders arrived shortly after, followed by an ambulance that took the boy to Gundersen Lutheran, where he was treated and released.
It is unclear how the boy wandered away from his day-care provider and got into water that was over his head.
Lorens said it was the first time she had to use CPR.
“Sara and I knew what we should do, and I was so focused on the little boy,” Lorens said. “It’s a big weight off my shoulders that the boy lived.
“Life can change in a moment and fortunately it didn’t in this case,” she said.
Kromke said her 8-year-old son, Nicholas, a member of Holmen’s swim team, was the one who told the lifeguard to blow the whistle. “I’m so proud of him,” she said.
Kromke said there’s not a day when she doesn’t think about the boy.
“I feel if I never do anything again as a nurse, I was part of this miracle,” Kromke said.
“This little boy gets to go on and have a happy life.”
“I don’t need to meet the boy, but I’d like to see this boy active and playing,” she said.
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