By Greg Welter
The Chico Enterprise-Record
CHICO, Calif. — A Chico woman dropped by her neighborhood Walgreens Drug Store on Nord Avenue Wednesday to thank employees there for saving her life.
It isn’t the latest miracle drug dispensed by the pharmacy that Tina Turner Griffith, 40, credits, but old school mouth-to-mouth resuscitation administered by store manager Keith Fickert, 28.
Griffith said she was in line near the store’s photo and pharmacy counters about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday when she began to black out, probably due to a seizure disorder, then stopped breathing. She collapsed into a chair as employee Cindy Williams called 9-1-1 to get medical help rolling, then paged Fickert to the back of the business.
Fickert started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation immediately. Williams asked to be transferred to Enloe Medical Center so she could coach her boss through the procedure. Medical officials first told Williams to get the victim on the floor. The next instruction was to tilt the woman’s head back, which Fickert, who has had CPR training, had already done. “Actually, at that point, we were ahead of them,” Williams said.
Fickert continued the procedure for 90 seconds to two minutes, he recalled, before Griffith started to come around.
Williams said the woman let out a big gasp, then started to breathe on her own.
“They saved my life,” Griffith said. “There’s no doubt about it.” Emergency medical technicians arrived in the meantime and took over care of the woman. She was transported to Enloe, where she was treated and released.
On Wednesday she said she had seen a specialist, who was conducting tests and planned to aggressively treat her condition.
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