Nursing student helps save a friend's life

Fort Worth, TX

6/25/2010

Katariina Tuohimaa, TCU Schieffer School of Journalism

Taylor Hohmann, a TCU sophomore nursing student from Austin, had to experience an unexpected preview of her future profession as she helped save the life of her friend last summer.

Hohmann spent a weekend with her friends at a ranch near Hico, Texas, where they enjoyed the outdoors, fishing and relaxing. While they were on a boat one morning, Kristen Kilpatrick, a TCU art education major from Fort Worth, fell off the boat and as the boat ran over her the propeller severed Kilpatrick’s arm.

“My first instinct was to call 911 and get her out of the water,” Hohmann recalled. “She told us her arm was hurting while she was in the water, but we had no idea of the extent of the injury until she was hoisted up on the back of the boat by the guys.”

Kilpatrick’s right arm was almost completely severed, as the propeller cut through the skin, tendons, muscle and bones. Hohmann and her friends made a sweatshirt into a makeshift sling to hold her arm in place and tied a belt around the top part of her right arm to cut off the blood flow as much as possible. Meanwhile, Hohmann called 911 and requested a careflight helicopter immediately.

“As soon as she was in the helicopter we fell to the ground praying,” Hohmann said, “and I think the one thing that we took comfort in was the fact that we had done all we could to help her and at that point she was in medical hands, and ultimately in God's hands.”

Kilpatrick was rushed to the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, where Dr. Joseph Borelli, chief of Orthopedic Surgery, was able to re-attach Kristen's arm in a five-hour surgery. According to First Coast News, an NBC affiliate operating in Florida and Georgia, just three hours after the surgery, Kilpatrick was able to wiggle the fingers on her right arm.

At the time, Hohmann had taken only nursing prerequisite classes, and did not have much classroom experience for emergency situations like this. But even without clinical experience, Hohmann knew to act quickly and focus on stopping the blood flow, and get medical help as fast as possible.

Hohmann says the most important thing when facing a situation like this was to stay calm and rational.

“I think traumatic situations are hard to prepare for both mentally and physically,” Hohmann said. “You can know how to act in that situation but it all comes down to how composed one is to take on the task. I certainly never thought I would have to act under such traumatic circumstances and pressure, especially involving a friend, but it's important to make quick rational decisions and to stay calm and composed, especially for others.”

Hohmann has always had a passion for helping others, and said that is why she thinks nursing is such a great profession. She hopes to go to graduate school and become an advanced practice nurse.

“I find the ICU, Trauma and ER units the most exciting,” she said, “not only because of the variety of cases you would deal with but also because it can be fast pace and requires one to constantly be thinking on their feet.”

Taylor Hohmann is not the first nursing student at TCU to have saved another person’s lives.

Last August, Leah Joslin, a senior nursing major was flying back from a vacation in Las Vegas, when a passenger lost his consciousness. Joslin recognized the symptoms of oxygen deprivation and helped him through the flight until they landed at the Dallas Fort Worth airport.

Another nursing major faced with an emergency 30,000 feet above the ground was Kate Lunati, who helped stabilize a severely dehydrated young woman on her flight back from a mission trip in Central America.

Undoubtedly, saving a person’s life has given these nursing students new meaning and depth to their educational curriculum.

“I feel proud of my education,” Joslin told KTVT Channel 11. “I feel like, wow, I really do know something.”