Outer Banks woman helps save a life, thanks to Dare County training course

KILL DEVIL HILLS — When Tracie Porter went out to eat with a group of friends, she didn’t know she’d be using the life-saving training she’d been required to take for work.

The group of five friends went to 3 Tequilas Restaurante Mexicano in Kill Devil Hills on Feb. 23 and sat in the bar area, facing away from the booths. But soon, one of Porter’s friends got her attention as they saw “a lady that was just kind of collapsed forward in her booth, not responding to her daughter.”

Porter, 58, went over to help. The woman wasn’t responding to questions or to pain stimulus when she gave her a little pinch. Porter couldn’t find a pulse.

Porter asked the woman’s daughter — whom she guessed was in her 30s, and who had two children of her own at the booth — to help move the woman to the floor. She also asked restaurant staff to call 911.

“I started chest compressions,” Porter recalled. She wasn’t sure how long she did those because she said time seemed to have stopped.

“It looked like she took a little gasp of air, so I stopped the compressions, and you could see her chest and stomach move very slightly — so she was breathing again,” Porter continued. “And then when EMS arrived, she was breathing pretty good on her own at that point.”

After Emergency Medical Services workers were on scene for a little while, she said the woman “was a little confused, but she was actually able to respond to verbal commands and everything.”

After they loaded her into the ambulance, the woman’s daughter “came back, gave me a huge hug and said, ‘Thank you,’” Porter said.

While Porter insisted she was “not special,” and stressed, “I know there’s a lot of other people who would have done the same thing,” she expressed gratitude to Dare County for providing the “excellent” training.

A Manteo resident, Porter has worked as a real estate property appraiser with Dare County for over 6 1/2 years. She worked at The Outer Banks Hospital in Nags Head for 10 years prior to that, as a care coordinator for patients and families.

She said she took the county’s four-hour-long First on The Scene training in October. It included CPR, as well as how to stop bleeding, how to deal with broken bones and more.

“It’s invaluable as far as I’m concerned,” Porter said. “I really enjoyed it. I really didn’t think much about it other than, ‘I’m glad to know this.’ I wasn’t expecting to use it.”

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten publicly commended Porter during the March 4 Dare County Board of Commissioners meeting.

“Someone had a heart attack, and she used that training to stabilize that person,” while waiting for EMS to arrive, Outten said. “We had a good outcome, and so I wanted to commend her publicly to you all.”

The goal of the mandatory First On the Scene training was for county employees — who are often out in the community for work — to have this lifesaving knowledge in case of emergencies, he said.

He noted that all of the around 800 county employees have taken the training.

“I’ve taken it … and it’s excellent and it does make a difference,” Outten said. “Some people kind of looked at us funny when we started doing that, but we felt like we could make a difference, and it turns out we’re right.”

Porter opined that more local employers — especially the larger ones — should require the training.

Dare County EMS provided the training to county employees, but would likely not have the budget to provide it to other employers, according to Jennie Collins, the county’s EMS director.

“We would put the business in contact with available instructors,” Collins noted. “We thought it was a good fit for county government employees.”

First On the Scene is a course offered through the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians, and “we’re a training site,” she said.

Collins said she hadn’t heard of any other county employee using the training yet but is “definitely aware” of Porter. “She emailed us, thanking us for the class” and sharing her experience, Collins said.

“I think it’s great for the community,” Porter said of the training. “That information and knowledge is very powerful.”