{"id":74450,"date":"2019-09-23T13:17:36","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T19:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/quick-action-saves-la-plata-county-staffers-life\/"},"modified":"2019-09-23T19:17:36","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T19:17:36","slug":"quick-action-saves-la-plata-county-staffers-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/quick-action-saves-la-plata-county-staffers-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick action saves La Plata County staffer\u2019s life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"When
When Brian Getz, front, experienced a severe allergic reaction, he was assisted by co-workers in La Plata County\u2019s IT department. Cedar Sorrell, James Torres and Kelly Hobby came to his aid after he was stung by a bee on his bicycle ride to work.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

It was a difference of 10 minutes between life and death for Brian Gretz.<\/p>\n

Gretz, who works as a systems coordinator for La Plata County\u2019s IT department, started his day on Sept. 4 like any other: riding his bike to work.<\/p>\n

On the way in, a bee hit Gretz in the chest and went into his shirt, stinging him on the chest. He was less than a mile from his office in the basement of the La Plata County Courthouse, and he didn\u2019t think much of the sting.<\/p>\n

But as he entered the building, Gretz started to sweat and feel jittery, and he knew something wasn\u2019t right. Gretz went into his boss\u2019s office, James Torres, operations manager for the IT department, and told him of the sting. He said he wasn\u2019t feeling well.<\/p>\n

Torres got Gretz some Benadryl, fearing an allergic reaction. Then everything went dark.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing I remember was getting that Benadryl,\u201d Gretz said.<\/p>\n

But for the county\u2019s IT department, everything was just getting started.<\/p>\n

Torres said he is first-aid-certified, and he knew he had to act quickly while keeping his composure.<\/p>\n

Gretz\u2019s face had turned red, and he was slumping over, Torres said. So he laid Gretz on the floor and on his side in case he vomited.<\/p>\n

Another colleague, Kelly Hobby, stayed with Gretz while Torres called 911. Torres said Gretz passed out at 8:25 a.m. Emergency personnel had arrived at 8:38 a.m.<\/p>\n

Durango Fire\u2019s EMS chief, Scott Sholes, said Gretz was experiencing a severe allergic reaction that put him in anaphylactic shock \u2013 when blood pressure rapidly drops and not enough blood gets to the organs. Emergency crews administered epinephrine, or an EpiPen.<\/p>\n

Gretz was then taken to Mercy Regional Medical Center.<\/p>\n

Sholes said that had another 10 minutes gone by without the use of epinephrine, the outcome could have been dramatically different.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a life-threatening illness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gretz took a few days off to rest and returned to work Sept. 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was difficult coming in and walking past the scene of the incident,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m trying to piece things together and remember what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gretz said he never had an allergic reaction before in his life. He\u2019s now hypervigilant of bees and carries an EpiPen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes you more aware of life,\u201d Gretz said of the incident. \u201cWhen things happen now, I think, \u2018If things went the wrong way, I may not be with my family. I would have missed this.\u2019 It\u2019s a weird feeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cWords don\u2019t express how grateful you can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torres said the incident has caused intense self-reflection in the department. He wants to bring in more regular first-aid and CPR training. He said he was proud how his staff reacted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe takeaway here is there should always be someone, or multiple people, trained in first aid,\u201d he said. \u201cThat can be the difference between saving someone\u2019s life and losing someone\u2019s life. I think that\u2019s the critical lesson.<\/p>\n

Sholes agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnywhere there\u2019s a group of people who work together, they should offer CPR and first aid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The IT department recently was singled out at a county meeting for its actions that day. Brian\u2019s wife, Cheryl, spoke to the team, saying it was the couple\u2019s son\u2019s 18th birthday that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost became a widow,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re absolutely grateful for their action and not freezing. He would have lost a father that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

causes intense allergic reaction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,475,1512,3815],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-74450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-la-plata-county-government","tag-medical-conditions"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74450"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=74450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}