Matt Greer of Brookhaven was driving home from his shift at the Mississippi Center for Emergency Services, where he works as a flight nurse, when he got a call from his younger sister. A few days earlier, she had given birth to a healthy baby girl after an uncomplicated pregnancy. Now, she told him she had a headache.
He asked her to check her blood pressure: 140/90.
For most patients, that reading isn’t concerning. For a pregnant or postpartum woman, however, it’s an indication of preeclampsia. Greer told her to go to the hospital and eventually she did, getting treatment to prevent seizure and stroke.
But Greer thinks things might have gone very differently had he not completed a new training run by the Mississippi Center for Emergency Services just a few weeks before his sister called.