How luck, training helped an STHS nurse save a school bus driver

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Wednesday, May 12, 2021

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How luck, training helped an STHS nurse save a school bus driver

Mike Scott, mscott@stph.org

St. Tammany Health System Nurse Anesthetist Parker Ellis’ Monday morning got off to a fast start May 9, 2021,  when he found himself in the middle of a dramatic incident involving a school bus full of elementary school children and a bus driver having a seizure. (Photo by Tim San Fillippo / STHS)

Quick thinking by a St. Tammany Health System nurse anesthetist, along with a lot of luck and perhaps a little divine intervention, helped save the life of a beloved Madisonville school bus driver who suffered a medical emergency earlier this week while driving a bus full of elementary school children.

“That was a total God thing,” Parker Ellis said Tuesday morning, a day after the event. “There’s a whole bunch of different factors that, if any one of them would have gone differently, it really would have been a tragedy.”

For bus driver Ronnie Kass, it all started while he was picking up Lancaster Elementary School students in the Bedico Creek subdivision to bring them to school around 7:30 Monday morning (May 9).

Suddenly, Kass felt unwell, his body tremoring. Thinking fast, he pulled the emergency brake, bringing the bus to a sudden stop. He then fell into a seizure.

And that’s where Ellis, a certified registered nurse anesthetist at St. Tammany Health System – who just happened to be in the right place at the right time – comes in.

“Coincidentally enough, he pulled the brake right in front of my driveway, and when I happened to be coming around the corner to pull into my driveway,” Ellis said.

Thinking the driver had stopped to pick up a load of kids, Ellis waited patiently for the bus to resume its route so he could pull into his driveway.

And he waited.

“I could see him leaning over and making a jerking motion, but, honestly, it looked like he was picking up something off the floor,” Ellis said.

 

“That was a total God thing. There’s a whole bunch of different factors that, if any one of them would have gone differently, it really would have been a tragedy.”

- STHS Nurse Anesthetist Parker Ellis, CRNA 

When one of the children on the bus lowered a window and began waving out of it, Ellis realized something was wrong.

Unable to get into the bus through its front door, he told the kids to open the emergency exit in the back of the bus. They did, and he climbed aboard and made his way to the front of the bus to find Kass slumped over in his seat and seizing.

“At that point, the kids were pretty hysterical,” Ellis said. “Basically, the only thing holding Ronnie up from a foot off the ground was a seat belt. He was blue. He wasn’t breathing.”

Opening the front door of the bus from the inside, Ellis told the students – who had already called 911 – to disembark and wait on the lawn of one of his neighbors.  

Before administering CPR, Ellis performed a “jaw thrust” maneuver on Kass, intended to clear the airway of the tongue. “It’s something we do in anesthesia,” he said.

To Ellis’ relief, it worked. Although Kass remained unresponsive, he began breathing.

After using the bus’ two-way radio to notify dispatch to send another bus to pick up the children, Ellis and his neighbor took Kass off the bus to await an ambulance, which arrived soon thereafter.

They brought him to St. Tammany Health System’s main hospital campus in Covington. By sheer happenstance, Ellis just so happened to be working a shift later that day, giving the two a chance to visit – and giving the then-conscious Kass a chance to meet the man who saved his life.

“Nothing like that has ever happened to me, and chances are it will never happen again,” Ellis said. “But I was very happy and very fortunate to have the knowledge and the skill set I do have. I hope it never happens again, but if it does, I’m ready. Hopefully, it was a once-in-a-lifetime deal.”

 


Residents of Madisonville have started a GoFundMe account to benefit the Kass family during Ronnie Kass’ recovery. Click here to donate.

 

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