Issue link: https://blog.providence.org/i/1526715
4 | Health Matters: Providence St. Mary Medical Center Nurse David Mistretta in the St. Mary cath lab Swift Action Saves Baby Quick-thinking Providence St. Mary nurse rescues infant at local event. I n a pivotal moment last March at the High Desert Family Expo, held at the SBC Fairgrounds in Victorville, David Mistretta, a registered nurse in Providence St. Mary Medical Center 's cath lab, found himself in the right place at the right time. While he and two colleagues, stroke navigator Mindi Burfield, RN, and registered nurse Prudence Bergin, were manning a booth to bring awareness to stroke and heart attack care, a mother's desperate cries rang out: "My baby 's not breathing! My baby 's not breathing!" Mistretta remembers hearing the mother 's screams: "She took the baby out of the stroller, and I could see he was blue in the face and not really responsive." Mistretta, who has been with the hospital for 11 years, quickly assessed the situation and asked his co-workers to call for an ambulance before he rushed to the child. At the time, Mistretta had a 10-month-old daughter of his own, so he felt a sense of urgency and familiarity as he took the baby from the mother. "Luckily I was very used to having a baby that size in my arms," he says. A QUICK ASSESSMENT IS CRITICAL It was at this point that the mother turned to her other child and frantically asked, "What did you give your brother to eat?" Mistretta surmised from this that the infant might be choking. He observed the baby 's 4 | Health Matters: Providence St. Mary Medical Center