First Aid classes
For a list of upcoming classes on CPR and first aid techniques, visit www.redcross.org/take-a-class.
How many times have you heard a customer tell a waiter or waitress: “You’re a life saver” — and all for simply bringing a cocktail?
It’s usually said in humor. But for Blake Condrey, the comment is true.
Over the past 18 months, the 22-year-old waiter at Abuelo’s in East Brainerd has used the training he received over the years as both a lifeguard and an emergency medical technician to save a customer’s life.
And he’s done it on three different occasions.
“It’s like a black cloud,” he says, “but it’s kind of funny. Every time it’s happened I always seem to be in the right place.”
Yes, he’s heard the quips that perhaps he is a black cloud of bad luck himself, but he prefers to see it the other way. He’s also quick to point out that he wishes the incidents never happened and hopes they never do again.
Waitstaff often find themselves in the middle of domestic disputes, fistfights, inebriated patrons and people who are just plain rude. Saving a life? Not so much.
About 18 months ago, Condrey had just delivered appetizers to a table of women in the bar area at Abuelo’s when one of the ladies appeared to pass out.
“I thought she was passing out or drunk,” he says, “but she hadn’t had an entire drink at that point. I didn’t know what might have happened, but I started going through my checklist. I felt for a pulse and it was very weak, thready.
“I tilted her head back and she was struggling for breath, so I went right for it and stuck two fingers into her mouth and pulled out this big thing of masticated food.
“It was gross and she spit up, but she started breathing.”
Chattanooga Fire Station No. 7 is mere yards away from Abuelo’s, and emergency medical technicians were on the scene immediately to take over. The woman was disoriented, but fine.
A similar incident recently happened with another woman and — again — Condrey was there to remove the item of food blocking her airway. And a few months ago, a large man at a table being attended to by another server suddenly slumped over. The server ran up to Condrey and said, “I think my guest at [table] 81 is dying.”
Condrey quickly found a customer big enough to help him get the man to the floor.
“I asked his wife about his medical history and she said he’d recently experienced a stroke. She told me his name and I put my hands around his head and said, ‘Hey, you’re OK. Come back whenever you are ready.'”
Then he started CPR.
Again, paramedics were on the scene quickly, got the man on a stretcher and into the ambulance. Privacy laws have prevented Condrey from learning whether the man lived or died.
“That was the worst of all of them,” he says. “I had to go home. It’s very scary and an adrenaline dump.”
I'm glad the training kicked in, but afterward I did have to walk around and calm down. It was like, 'Whoa, what just happened?' I like to think all things came together, the stars aligned and I was there for a reason."
Cindy Ruff is thankful that Sawyer Garrett, a waiter at the Red Lobster in Hixson, knew what to do when she tapped him on the shoulder on Dec. 27. Seconds earlier she had taken a vitamin and it lodged in her airway.
“I couldn’t breathe or speak,” she says. “I ran to a waiter and tapped him on the shoulder and I heard him say, ‘You can’t breathe?’ He turned me around and performed the Heimlich. It didn’t work and he started thumping me on my back.”
The action dislodged the pill but, for a time, Ruff could not breathe.
“It was extremely terrifying. The doctor told me later I would have died if not for him,” she says. “It was a blessing that he was there. The manager there told me later that [Garrett] was actually working in a (wait) station that wasn’t normal for him.”
Garrett, 24, says the training he’d gotten pursuing his Eagle Scout badge kicked in, and he recalls that he was very calm throughout Ruff’s choking incident. The reality of what happened only kicked in afterwards.
“I’m glad the training kicked in, but afterward I did have to walk around and calm down. It was like, ‘Whoa, what just happened?'” he says. “I like to think all things came together, the stars aligned and I was there for a reason.”
Jim Striker, owner of Raw on Market Street, has worked in restaurants and bars for three decades, and says he’s never had to deal with saving a customer’s life. Someone he worked with had to do it, though.
“At my first job, though, a woman had a heart attack and drove her car into the front of the restaurant. My manager performed CPR on the woman.”
Both Condrey and Garrett say CPR and emergency medical training they’ve received over the years definitely helped them in the life-saving events. Both also say they’ve been surprised and disappointed at how few of their colleagues have received such training.
“It’s one of those things that I thought more people knew how to do,” Garrett says.
Because the technique regularly appears on television in police and hospital dramas, both real and fictional, he assumed his co-workers at least were familiar with it. Several were not.
“It’s kind of scary to think that not everyone can react like that.”
For Ruff, she feels it was “God’s timing” that Garrett was working that day and in that spot.
“He was so calm and he kept at it and didn’t stop.”
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.