Remarkable Women: Angel Carter
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Angel Carter is teaching people how to operate life-saving technology.
“It’s one thing to have an AED on the wall,” Carter said. “You’ve got to know what to do with it.”
Carter has been a registered nurse with Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt for 36 years. Working in the pediatric ICU and cardiology unit, she saw what can happen in the case of cardiac arrest without the correct use of CPR and an automated external defibrillator (AED).
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“For me it’s very personal, because we used to get children in who had not received appropriate care, through no fault of the humans present, just lack of knowledge. That child came in with a very poor outcome,” Carter said.
Monroe Carell became an affiliate of the nationwide nonprofit, Project ADAM, which stands for Automated Defibrillators in Adam’s Memory. Adam was a high school athlete in Wisconsin who died of cardiac arrest.
“I was given this opportunity in 2017 to start this program, and that’s what I do every day and it’s amazing,” Carter said.
She travels all across the region, seven days a week, training people in CPR and AEDs at schools, churches, and sports organizations. Carter knows first-hand an emergency can strike when you least expect it.
“My husband is a high school basketball coach, and we were in a gym in Nashville. The opposing team’s coach suffered a cardiac arrest,” Carter said. “I was a nurse up in the stands just talking to some friends. I heard my name screamed because people knew I was a nurse. Myself and two other nurses responded; we took care of this coach I had known for 20 something years.”
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Carter used the AED in the gym, and the coach was awake and responsive before an ambulance arrived.
“Even though I had 20 plus years of nursing experience, I was out of my element. I was in a high school gym surrounded by people I didn’t really know trying to save this man’s life,” Carter said. “It was very emotional for me and sort of life-changing. It was coach Joey Spann, and Joey says all the time, ‘I had an angel save my life,’ you know, since that’s my first name.”
Carter said that experience turned her into an advocate for AEDs. With cardiac arrest, the electrical system in the heart malfunctions, and the first three to five minutes are critical.
“What the AED does is it diagnoses that quivering non-beating heart rhythm, and if the person needs a shock, it advises the user to deliver the shock,” Carter said.
Carter trained more than 5,000 people last year. She has seen lives saved, including children.
“That child is coming into our emergency room, they’re oriented, they know their name, they are alert, they go home within a week, and they’re back at school in 10 days,” Carter said. “They’re surviving. That, for me, is everything”
One of the most rewarding parts of her job is connecting with the people who saved a life.
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“The nurses have already called me and said, ‘We had an event today.’ They want to debrief with me; they want to talk through it and they want to tell me the story,” Carter said. “I’m able to really help them process through it because I’ve been there.”
And she hears from those whose lives were saved.
“I connect with the families of these saved children and it’s amazing. It’s amazing to get to do this,” Carter said.
Carter and her husband have three grown children and six grandchildren. They raise beef cattle on their farm in Chapel Hill. Her advice to everyone is to brush up on CPR. You can find videos online. Even if you don’t do it perfectly, you can still save a life.
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