Lifesaving technology at JCMC gives Blountville woman another chance at life

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — Complications from the flu might send some people to the hospital but for others, it can cause severe life-threatening issues.

That was the case for Shanna Shaffer. The Blountville native developed double pneumonia, acute respiratory distress and severe sepsis which led to her organs starting to fail.

In December 2022, Shaffer and her husband, Tim, both caught the flu. The two ended up in the emergency room at Bristol Regional Medical Center. They were able to come home but a few days later, Shaffer knew something wasn’t right.

“December the 16th I sat up on the bed and told [my husband] that I was going to die,” Shaffer said.

Her husband rushed her to Indian Path Community Hospital (IPCH).

“The last thing that I remember was the paramedic and the nurse and my husband being in the room with me and that was December 16 and that was the last thing that I remember until I woke up January 23,” she said. “I remember Doctor Clarkson laying his hand on my hand and saying, ‘You’re a miracle.’ I had no idea who he was or where I was at.”

From IPCH, Shaffer was taken to Holston Valley Medical Center where she was intubated. Doctors said her only chance for survival was Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation or ECMO. It’s only offered at a few hospitals nationwide and thankfully at Johnson City Medical Center.

“It functions in a way as an artificial lung or a mechanical pump that helps to kind of rest the heart and rest the lungs in order to give patients time to recover from whichever underlying condition it is that put them on to this circuit,” Dr. Trevor Clarkson, the director for the ECMO program at Ballad Health said.

In lung and heart patients, it does the work of those organs to give them a chance to rest and recover from whatever placed them on the machine.

“[The console] all the alarms and we can control the flow and the amount of support we are giving to our patients,” Trevor Peret, a registered nurse who works with the patients in the Cardiac ICU at JCMC, said. “The oxygenator is where the deoxygenated blood comes in from the patient. It is pumped through this oxygenator. [The] blood comes out oxygenated and then returns to the patient.”

“ECMO is in a lot of places considered kind of a last-ditch therapy,” Clarkson said. “These are the sickest patients in the hospital and for patients who go on with lung issues, the estimated survival is about 60%. For patients with heart issues, it’s 40% or less.”

Doctors at Ballad say the technology proved to be beneficial during the H1N1 outbreak and then again during Covid.

“All we’re trying to do is unload their body and their organ and systems to hopefully give them a shot to recover and regain life,” Bryan Helsel, the cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon, said

Ballad Health has four machines, known as circuits, and can care for two to three patients at a time.

“It’s a tremendous thing for us to have in this region in the state because formerly we had been relying on teams from Vanderbilt to mobilize and fly in and canulate patients and bring them back to Nashville,” Clarkson said.

“I am thankful it was here so that my family could all be with me,” Shaffer said.

Shaffer spent 29 days on the ECMO circuit and had a tracheostomy. She now only has 57% of her total lung capacity.

“I did have to re-train myself how to swallow. I had to have a couple of swallow tests done before they could actually give me something,” Shaffer said. “I would get like a half of a spoon to me and I would get aggravated and I’d put my hands down and I would cry because it was so hard learning to do the things that I had done for so many years all over again.”

Shaffer’s in rehab for her lungs four days a week and has other regular doctor’s appointments outside of that. She also still needs oxygen when she exerts herself and sometimes when she sleeps.

Shaffer’s Life looks very different now; sometimes doctors can’t tell her what to expect next.

“People are always like ‘You’re a miracle. That’s amazing.’ It is amazing but it’s also hard at the same time,” Shaffer said.

While there are things she can’t do anymore, Shaffer says it means everything to still be here.

“It means everything to be here to be with my husband and my daughter,” she said.

She has tried to track down every person who had a hand in taking care of her. From the emergency room nurses to the medevac crew.

Shaffer’s care team at Ballad says it’s encouraging to see her and they hope to continue to expand the program.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather.