The year 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic were challenging for just about everyone. But for one local paramedic, it was an especially difficult period.
For more than four decades, Lori Krueger was devoted to helping others as a paramedic and emergency medical technician. And for nearly 17 years, she aided people in crisis as a 911 dispatcher.
All that changed on Sept. 20, 2020, when she had excruciating back pain. Krueger could barely walk, and her best friend, Mary Zipperer, called an ambulance and Krueger was admitted to a Lakeshore hospital. She spent three days in the hospital, was released and went back a few days later with severe pain.
Krueger was taken to a Green Bay hospital, where doctors found she was in severe septic shock. Scans also found she had an epidural abscess.