First Responders Spotlight: Asthma emergency on the canal

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Every year at the end of the season the Pull The Plug Regatta returns to Pittsford. It’s the closeout event for crew teams on the canal and last fall was no different until this happened.

“I got a message over the walkie-talkie that there was a young woman having trouble breathing,” Dr. Jeffrey Haynes said.

For his day job, Dr. Haynes is the division head for radiation/oncology at RGH. He’s also a rower and just happened to be one of the doctors at the canal that day. They volunteer in case there’s an emergency on either end of the course.

“One of the young women was breathing fast and looked like she was not getting enough air,” he explained. “I gave her the inhaler.”

The girl’s parents told Sunrise anchor Brennan Somers their daughter had a severe exercise-induced asthma attack.

Once the team and Haynes got her out of the canal she was shivering. They moved her inside to get warm so she could try the inhaler again. Haynes, asthmatic himself, coached her through the panic.

“You know an asthma attack on the water is not a big problem if you brought an inhaler and have someone who can bring it down to them,” Haynes said. “But it can be a serious problem.”

In this on-call role, Dr. Haynes says what happened is a first but also an important reminder to all to be prepared just in case.

“I had a young woman who finished a race and said ‘I feel terrible’ so I gave her a banana to eat and she felt better,” Haynes added. “I give out BAND-AIDs, so I would say this was the event that made me appreciate the importance and made me glad that as a crew we’re taking seriously the fact that something could happen.”

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