Meet Ashley Wing, the Eaton Rapids phlebotomist who saved two people with CPR in 9 days

EATON RAPIDS - Ashley Wing isn't a lifesaver by trade, but this summer her quick actions made her one twice over.

Wing, 30, who works in the lab at Eaton Rapids Medical Center as a phlebotomist, saved two people in separate incidents that occurred nine days apart.

Medical center staff say if she hadn't acted as quickly as she did, performing CPR within seconds of witnessing both emergencies, neither person would have survived after their hearts had stopped beating.

Wing credits her hospital training in CPR, and a decade working in health care and witnessing doctors and nurses at work.

The lifelong Eaton Rapids resident said she did what anyone would have done.

But co-worker Kristy Orr said Wing shouldn't downplay her actions. She's alive because of them, Orr said.

"She's a lifesaver."

Acting within seconds

Wing and Orr work next to one another, sitting side by side at desks in the medical center's lab.

Orr trained Wing, a former patient care technician at Sparrow Hospital, when she started working at the medical center last February.

And the two women became fast, on-the-job friends.

On June 22 they both arrived at work ready for the weekend.

"It was a Friday," Wing said. "Me and Kristy had been joking all morning about being tired, wanting to go home."

After Wing turned away to assist a patient, she noticed Orr seated, with her head on her desk.

"'Oh my gosh,' I told her," Wing said. "Me too. I'm so tired."

Orr didn't say anything and, seconds later, fell to the floor.

Wing knelt down beside her, and saw Orr's lips turning blue.

It took Wing only seconds to act in what she calls "an out of body experience."

She called the medical center's emergency department and immediately started CPR.

"It was like I was watching myself do it," Wing said. "Like somebody had their hand on my shoulder guiding me through it. I just kept thinking, 'You have to keep pumping her chest until somebody comes.'"

Wing used her hands to administer compressions to Orr's chest for a few minutes, though "it felt like forever," she said. Panic didn't set in until a nurse arrived to take over.

"I couldn't breathe then," Wing said. "I kept saying Kristy's name. I think I had a panic attack then."

It was terrifying, she said, but as it turns out was essential to helping staff revive Orr, who spent four days in the hospital and six weeks off work recovering from cardiac arrest. 

Nine days later on July 1, Wing was in the lobby at the medical center when a man ran through the front doors yelling for help. A man in a car parked outside the center's front door had stopped breathing.

Wing rushed outside and performed CPR again, calling the emergency department from the cell phone stuffed in her pocket.

Hospital staff said he made a full recovery. His name was not released.

Angela Ackley, a registered nurse and Eaton Rapids Medical Center's emergency department manager, said immediate CPR coupled with the use of a defibrillator is key to restarting someone's heart after they suffer sudden cardiac arrest.

"You will not survive without it," Ackley said. "Staff here admire Ashley to the nth degree. To do that two times in that many days is unheard of."

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'A true life saver'

Eaton Rapids Medical Center CEO Tim Johnson said it's been at least a decade since a member of the medical center's staff who isn't employed to respond to medical emergencies saved a life on the job.

Wing is an unlikely hero, he said, and her actions are proof of why all of the center's staff receive regular CPR training.

"This is why we do this, because you just never know," Johnson said.

Orr woke up in the hospital the day after she collapsed at her desk, remembering nothing about the incident.

She called Wing to thank her after she heard what she had done.

In the months since Wing has told her she was simply doing her job.

"People in the emergency department save lives every day and nobody pats them on the back for it," Wing said.

"She didn't think it was a big deal," Orr said, tearing up. "It's a big deal to me."

The medical center's 12-member Board of Directors presented Wing with a resolution recognizing her actions Aug. 27.

It describes her as "a true lifesaver" who exercised "her outstanding service, ability and courage" to save two people.

"She downplays it, but what she did was very special," Johnson said.

It's changed how Orr and Wing view their friendship too.

"It's just something you can't really explain," Wing said.

"It's stronger," Orr said. "It's amazing. You can't thank somebody enough for something like that. The words 'thank you' don't do it."

Contact Reporter Rachel Greco at (517) 528-2075 or rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @GrecoatLSJ.