PLANTATION, Fla. (WFOR) – A Florida gas station attendant is alive today because a nurse trusted her gut when she had a feeling something was wrong as she fueled up her car.
Nurse Alison Seecoomar doesn’t always get to follow up with her patients, but 67-year-old Luis Sanchez-Mendia had to see her again. She wasn’t his nurse Nov. 10, just a customer at the gas station where he works, filling up her tank after her shift.
“I see him all the time as a ‘hi and bye,’” Seecoomar said.
But this time was different: the nurse recognized something was wrong. Sanchez-Mendia told her he had some chest pains. She had her stethoscope with her and took his pulse.
“Murmur. A loud murmur,” Seecoomar said.
She told Sanchez-Mendia to go to the hospital then left, but she quickly returned since she was unsure if he’d actually go.
“My name is Alison. Please tell them that you know me. They will see you quicker,” Seecoomar said.
Sanchez-Mendia took the nurse’s advice, and when he got to her workplace, HCA Florida Westside Hospital, he found out he needed immediate surgery. The 67-year-old had a valve replaced in his heart Nov. 15.
He says he probably wouldn’t have gotten help if Seecoomar hadn’t been there.
“She saved my life, and she gave me one more opportunity,” Sanchez-Mendia said.
The two reunited Friday at the hospital, and Sanchez-Mendia, who will turn 68 on Christmas Eve, got the chance to thank his “angel” as they shared a teary embrace.
“This is the biggest gift I could ever receive,” he said. “Nurse Alison truly is my angel.”
He says this experience has given him a new outlook on life, and he is glad Seecoomar picked his gas station that night.
“She don’t go there, maybe this story is different,” he said.
Seecoomar says her instincts as a nurse were correct.
“It’s a nurse’s instinct to say, ‘Hey, you wanna check this out and don’t put it off,‘” she said.
The hospital says it is “proud to celebrate the extraordinary care and dedication of its staff, who go above and beyond both in and out of the hospital to serve the community.”
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