Jamie Franklin is getting ready to graduate from the University of Kansas School of Nursing next week, but she’s already saved a life with her training. While on vacation in Mexico with family at Thanksgiving, Franklin and her mom took a shortcut through the pool area where a woman was being hauled out of the pool, unconscious and purple. Franklin realized she knew what to do and she performed CPR, by herself, saving the woman’s life.

            In the video, Franklin explains how her training at the KU School of Nursing and as a nursing associate in the Orthopedics Department at The University of Kansas Health System prepared her to save the woman’s life and orchestrate the scene as the only first responder available. “I was so well-prepared as we had done the Code Blue training where you practice being the first one on scene, the second one on scene, and so on,” she said. “I also had performed CPR in simulation so long that muscle memory took over and I was able to ask others to call an ambulance and get oxygen.”

In the additional video, you can see and hear Franklin actually performing the CPR poolside. She did it for more than six minutes, then watched as the woman turned from a blueish purple to a normal skin tone. Days later, she learned that the woman was out of the ICU, sitting up and talking. Franklin has found her calling in emergency medicine, as she will join The University of Kansas Health System Emergency Department this summer as a full-time employee.