Photo By Tech. Sgt. Mikaley Kline | Capt. Ayesha Safo, assigned to the 628th Healthcare Operations Squadron at Joint Base...... read more read more
“We need EMS [Emergency Medical Services] to the parking lot.”
It was about five p.m. when U.S. Air Force Capt. Ayesha Safo, assigned to the 628th Healthcare Operations Squadron at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, heard the distress call come over the radio at the Minnesota State Fair Grounds Community Vaccine Center (CVC) in St. Paul, Minnesota, May 6, 2021.
“I heard someone call for medical services to come to the parking lot,” she said. “If it was one of the military members they would have asked for a provider or announced a specific area, so we were all a little confused as to what they were talking about.”
After hearing the call, Safo went around trying to find out where help was needed.
“I went out to the [Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)] tent and asked if they were the ones that sent the distress call, but they said it wasn’t them,” she said. “That’s when I figured out that they were talking about the main patient parking lot.”
Safo was able to meet EMS in the parking lot and work with them to help save a patient.
“Fortunately we have EMS here on site [at the St. Paul CVC] and they were able to drive over in their rig,” she said. “We saw that there was this male patient laying on the ground, unresponsive and was not rousable to painful stimuli such as a sternal rub.”
Safo and responders helped to raise the patient’s feet to help blood return to the heart, but they still weren’t getting any type of response.
“There were some bystanders around that alerted the Coast Guard members [working in the parking lot] that they needed help,” she said. “They mentioned that the patient said, before passing out, that he was having some back pain after having a recent back surgery. This immediately made us think that this was probably an opioid overdose.”
Safo listened to his lungs and wasn’t hearing any spontaneous respirations.
“His heart rate was down into the 40s, so EMS started bagging him and were able to bring his saturations up,” she said. “Then we gave him a dose of Narcan and his heart rate shot up and his vitals were looking much better.”
Despite giving the man a first dose of Narcan he still wasn’t coming to yet.
“He started to become hard to bag which became even more concerning,” she said. “We gave him a second dose of Narcan about five minutes later and after that he started to come through. We were able to ask him his name and he knew where and who he was and what he was supposed to be doing that day.”
Shortly afterwards, a second EMS rig arrived to transport the patient.
“It was just really scary to think that if EMS hadn’t been on site by the time a rig arrived for transport, he would have been down and unresponsive that whole time without any Narcan,” she said. “That’s not something we have in our supplies here, so he may not have made it without help.”
Back at the 628th HCOS at Joint Base Charleston, Safo is a family medicine doctor helping take care retirees and dependents.
“I also do a lot of women’s health, taking care of active duty females,” she added. “For a pretty long time we didn’t have a women’s health provider.”
Safo commissioned in the Air Force July 2019.
“I did all of my training as a civilian,” she said. “I went to medical school at the American University of the Caribbean in St. Maarten. I did two years on the island and I did my third year clinicals in England, so I was able to see how socialized healthcare works and compare it to the United States.”
Safo finished up her fourth year of medical school in New York City.
“Those were some amazing experiences as far as the breadth of knowledge that you gain working in a major city, since I was in the Bronx,” she said.
She went on to do her family medicine residency at Duke/Southern Regional AHEC in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
“It was awesome because a majority of my clinic’s patient population was retirees and dependents,” she said.
Coming from a military family was one of the reasons that Safo decided to join the Air Force.
“Both my parents and both sets of step parents were all Army and they all advised me not to go into the Army,” she said. “They told me choose any other branch. I have a family friend, and now a mentor, who’s a Colonel that recommended I join the Air Force.”
Safo, who attended Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas, and played college basketball there, loves to travel in her free time.
“I enjoy traveling and going to new places and seeing different cultures,” she said. “I did a two month backpacking trip in South East Asia, visiting Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia.”
Here at the St. Paul CVC, Safo serves as a provider team lead.
“I’m the sole physician and we have two nurse practitioners along with one physician assistant,” she said. “We as a team answer any medical questions that any of the patients coming through may have and screen people who have any symptoms, seeing if it is safe for them to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.”
Seeing firsthand how the vaccine is helping the local community is the most rewarding part of the mission for Safo.
“Seeing how this vaccine is making a difference in the community is what makes this rewarding,” she said. “Patients are grateful that this site is open and that they are able to get an appointment after trying multiple other places and waiting for months, not being able to get the vaccine. We are providing that service to them and that relief so that we can get back to some sense of normalcy.”
| Date Taken: | 05.28.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 06.01.2021 18:00 |
| Story ID: | 397857 |
| Location: | ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, US |
| Web Views: | 238 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Airman’s swift actions saves local community member, by TSgt Mikaley Kline, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
