Mount Everest record
Emma Schwerin became the youngest American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest at just 17 years, 2 months and 24 days old — fulfilling a dream that began in an eighth-grade English class.
Schwerin and her father, Sam, spent more than two years climbing the tallest mountains on six continents, each losing 10% of their body weight and battling frostbite before achieving their goal on Everest in May.
Her father proved instrumental throughout the challenging journey.
“My dad’s a big inspiration for me and he always has been, but it’s hard when other people don’t believe in you and so he was always there right beside me,” Emma Schwerin said.
Her dream began in eighth grade during an English class lesson about Mount Everest. She went home that day telling her father how incredible it would be to take on a climb like that someday.
Sam Schwerin said watching his daughter’s determination helped him overcome his own fears.
“I was able to overcome a lot of those mental challenges, just watching all she was able to do physically,” he said.
Reaching Everest’s summit represented more than personal achievement for the teenager.
“It kind of, for me, just reflected all of the hard work that I had put in and my dad and my family had put in to achieving my goal,” she said. “But my mom told me not to celebrate too much until we got down from the summit.”
Emma Schwerin said her climbing serves a larger purpose beyond mountaineering records.
“I want people, especially young girls, to just realize that they can do anything they set their minds to,” she said. “You just need to believe in yourself.”
ICU nurse saves cardiac arrest victim, later treats him at hospital
An ICU nurse heading out on vacation saved a jogger’s life during a cardiac arrest, only to discover days later that the same man had been assigned to his care at the hospital.
Grady Lenihan was leaving for vacation with a friend last month when they spotted 63-year-old Kevin Rider lying facedown on a sidewalk near Kansas City. Rider had collapsed from sudden cardiac arrest while jogging.
“We switched off doing chest compressions until EMS arrived,” Lenihan said.
Lenihan thought Rider would not survive the medical emergency. After Lenihan’s vacation, he returned to work at the hospital for his next shift and learned about a patient who had experienced cardiac arrest with a bystander performing CPR. That patient was Rider, alive and recovering.
“I had to do a double take a little bit,” Lenihan said when he saw him.
For Rider, the gratitude is unending.
“Something would tell him to stop and come in and do what he was trained to do. And … he was trained to save a life,” Rider said.
Nurse performs CPR on drunk raccoon after dumpster rescue
A registered nurse used her medical training in an unusual way last month when she performed CPR on a baby raccoon that had gotten drunk from eating fermented peaches.
Misty Combs responded to reports of a distressed raccoon in a parking lot, where she found the adult animal making noises because its babies were trapped in a dumpster.
“Some people had said they had seen a raccoon in the parking lot,” Combs said. “When we got out there, there was a raccoon, it was making a chitter chatter noise. And we were like, ‘oh my gosh, there is something wrong with this raccoon.'”
Using a shovel to help with the rescue, Combs discovered one of the baby raccoons had eaten fermented peaches discarded by a neighboring moonshine business.
“It was dog drunk,” Combs said.
The nurse immediately began performing CPR on the intoxicated animal. Fish and wildlife officials took the raccoon to a veterinarian, who administered fluids and allowed the animal to recover from its alcohol-induced condition.
“They let it sleep off its hangover and they brought it back to me the next day, which was really surprising to me and they let me turn it loose,” Combs said. “And the next day it was a different fuzzy little raccoon instead of the drunk wet one that I had seen.”
Despite the unusual nature of the rescue, Combs said she was simply doing what felt right.
“I don’t want, like, the fame from it because I was just doing my job and what I thought was right at the time,” she said. “You gotta be careful because you can get rabies, but I feel like you have to help the little guys out sometimes.”
The incident earned Combs a playful nickname among colleagues.
“I’m the raccoon queen,” she said.
