Utah 9-1-1 Dispatchers Honored for Work in Saving Woman’s Life
TOOELE, Utah – Courtney Soffel’s voice was calm as she gave CPR instructions to Josh Hinckley on June 10, 2012.
“So listen carefully, I want you to pump the chest hard and fast at least twice per second, OK?” the Tooele County 9-1-1 dispatcher said.
Hinckley’s wife was on the floor of their home in severe pain, 20 weeks pregnant.
“So count out loud so I can count with you,” Soffel said. “OK, go ahead.”
Josh Hinckley began compressions on his wife’s chest, counting aloud, “One, two, three, four, five …” This went on for several more minutes until paramedics arrived.
It’s a phone call that no one ever wants to make. But his decision to make that call and the quick actions of emergency responders certainly saved the life of his wife, Cali.
It was an 11-minute call, which stirred a lot of emotion again as it was replayed at the Tooele County Sheriff’s Office. For the first time since the incident, the Hinckleys finally got to meet those who came to their aid on that day.
“I’ve been trying to track them down for the last two years since the incident,” Josh Hinckley said. “And it’s just a good day to finally meet them and give them a hug and say thank you.”
Cali Hinckley said it meant a lot to see the faces of those who acted so quickly to help her.
“It meant everything to me,” she said. “This is their story. I mean I’m a part of it, but these ladies and these professionals are the ones who saved me. It chokes me up because they did everything they could to save my life, and without every single one of them, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Cali Hinckley was suffering from complications from amniotic fluid getting into her bloodstream, a condition that’s fatal most of the time. But because of the quick decisions of people like dispatcher Yvonne Gale, who called for an AirMed helicopter; flight nurses Amanda Lawrence and Windi Bray who arrived within minutes, and the constant phone instructions by Soffel, Hinckley survived.
The baby, however, died.
Hinckley spent several more weeks in and out of the hospital because of complications, but except for some minor short-term memory issues, she has made a complete recovery.
For Soffel, who has been a dispatcher for about five years, most of the time she doesn’t hear about how her actions may have helped those on the other end of the phone call.
“It seems like it takes forever, because we just want to paint as much of a clear picture for the responders as we can so they know what they’re getting into when they get there,” she said. “A lot of times we don’t know exactly what’s going on when we take the call. We just try to go off the picture that people paint for us. It’s just amazing to see them here all together today.”
Josh and Cali Hinckley took a brief tour of the 9-1-1 dispatch center and saw where Soffel talked Josh through all the procedures.
“I wouldn’t have known what to do,” Josh Hinckley said. “It was kind of a state of shock for me. Courtney did a great job of walking me through it and just kind of keeping me calm.”
Amanda Lawrence, one of the flight nurses on the AirMed helicopter that transported Cali Hinckley, said this case illustrates how people from various emergency agencies working together can make a huge difference in saving someone’s life.
“We’re a very visible part of the EMS world. People see the helicopters and all that, and we get a lot of publicity for that,” she said.
“But we are part of such a huge team that none of this would have happened, this family would not be here today, if every single thing that happened that day hadn’t happened the way that it did.”