A Stay to Remember

Colleagues turned these patients’ hospital experiences into lifelong memories

People are always happy to return home after a hospital visit. But they never truly leave the hospital behind. Always remember that our patients never forget, and they share their experiences—good and bad—with others. Here are four stories from patients who recall with fondness the people they’ve met at Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network.

“I was amazed at the care Pat and her family received.”
Mitch McGeehin (left) was sound asleep when he received an alarming phone call from Gary Ward (right), his best friend of 45 years. Ward’s wife, Pat, was on her way to LVH–Cedar Crest. Her heart had stopped beating while she was reading in bed.

The next few days were a blur. Pat was placed on life support. “It was emotional,” McGeehin says. Within a few days, Pat responded to voices and was breathing on her own.

Pat’s cardiologist, David Cox, M.D., diagnosed her with cardiomyopathy, a disease that causes the heart muscles to become inflamed and not function properly. She is doing well but has a long road to recovery. Pat’s care prompted their friend to write a letter to The Morning Call. It read: “The next time you drive by the ‘Taj Mahal’ of Lehigh Valley Hospital, please know that there are many extraordinary things going on inside.”

“We want to help the hospital give outstanding care.”
Darlene Schoenly (right) was headed home after teaching at Reading’s Alvernia College. But when she hadn’t arrived, her husband, Herb (left), began to worry. He headed out to find her and came upon a crash scene. “I think my wife was in that accident,” he told a police officer. She had been. The officer pointed to our MedEvac helicopter lifting off the ground and told Herb that his wife was being flown here.

Darlene received immediate care for life-threatening injuries, then spent eight days in intensive care. Five years later, she still remembers her caregivers’ compassion. So the couple joined The Leonard Pool Society, a philanthropic group of community members and doctors who make a minimum $1,000 donation annually to the hospital.

“Lehigh Valley Hospital saved my life,” Darlene says. “It will be our favorite charity for the rest of our lives.”

“I was confident in the program and the doctors.”
After traveling the world as a military intelligence officer, Darryl Shafer returned home to the Lehigh Valley in the mid-1980s. That’s when he learned he had Alport Syndrome, a precursor to kidney failure.

By 1991, he needed a kidney transplant. His military doctors mentioned a close-to-home option: Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network, which had just started a transplant program. He was the second patient to receive a transplant here.

Seven years later, Shafer confidently referred his mother, who also suffers from Alport Syndrome. She had her transplant here in 1998. He told their stories at our Community Annual Meeting last December and wrote a thank-you letter to president and chief executive officer Elliot J. Sussman, M.D. “I truly believe the hospital is in a position to deliver all the medical care that’s needed in our region,” says Shafer, shown below with his wife, Rebecca, and their children, Cora and Ayla.

“How lucky you are to work there.”
When patient transporter Caroline Robert de Massy (right) walked into the transitional open-heart unit, she heard a family speaking French. “I’m French- Canadian, so I recognized the dialect instantly,” she says.

Then Massy listened to the family’s story. They had been traveling on I-81 near Pottstown last November en route to Quebec when the father had a heart attack. He pulled into a truck stop, called 9-1-1 and was brought by ambulance to a regional hospital. Then he was airlifted to LVH–Cedar Crest, where he was rushed to the operating room for an emergency triple bypass performed by cardiothoracic surgeon Michael Szwerc, M.D.

After he recovered, the father promised Massy he’d spread the word. He wrote a letter to his local newspaper in Quebec, Le Lien, explaining how the care he received had given him a favorable impression of Americans.

A gusty snow squall created a 68-car pileup on I-81 near Hazleton. Nineteen patients came to Hazleton General Hospital. Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network physicians were ready. They have staffed the hospital’s emergency department (ED) since 2006.

Doctors, nurses and support staff from all over the hospital responded. “We triaged patients at the door,” says emergency physician Annette Mann, D.O. The walking wounded received care in a short procedure unit while patients with more serious injuries received care from Mann, emergency physician Gregg Hellwig, M.D., and physician assistant Greg Jones. Within two hours, all the patients had received the care they needed. “It was a phenomenal team effort,” Mann says.

“In the ED, you have to be ready for anything,” Hellwig says. Because of education and preparation for disaster situations, they were.

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