After saying the “I do’s,” most brides just want to head for the reception and grab a bite of wedding cake. Andrew and Julie Nixon were heading across the street to check into their hotel. “We were just about to go through the doors,” Julie adds, “and then we heard somebody scream, ‘Does anybody know CPR? Is anybody a doctor’?’” Racing over to the bench, the couple found a woman passed out, barely breathing and lips blue.
The brand new bride knew what she was doing, she’s a trauma nurse at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital. “I looked over, and I think my nursing instincts took over,” she recalls “And I bolted over to the bench to see if she was all right.”
Still in her wedding gown, she began to perform CPR. “I started compressions right away. They told me she didn’t have a pulse.” Gradually, the woman came back from the brink of death.“She was mumbling, finally, and she tried to get up,” says the nurse/bride. “And I just kind of like held her hand, and I tried to make sure she didn’t fall.”
Julie brushed off gratitude and praise from the paramedics, modestly saying, “It really did seem that we were in the right place at the right time.”
Her new husband Andrew said proudly, “It was a heroic act, but I’ve known her for long enough, I’m not surprised at all.”
