By Laura Raines

For ajcjobs

Edna Schiller and her teenage daughter were on the way home from a high school band trip to Orlando, when the bus they were riding in pulled over on the highway. A parent asked Schiller to check out the bus driver, who was experiencing strange symptoms.

Barry Williams, Special Edna Schiller
, Henry Medical Center

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Schiller, 53, a nurse for 28 years, discovered that the man had suffered three previous heart attacks, so she called paramedics. The driver wouldn’t go to the hospital, but Schiller insisted that someone else drive the bus, so a parent with a commercial driver’s license drove to Valdosta, where they stopped to eat.

“I was coming back to the bus when the dad who had been driving yelled, ‘Get in here,’ ” said Schiller, a nurse at Henry Medical Center. The bus driver was slumped over and had no pulse.

“We got him out of the bus and onto the pavement and I gave him CPR for six or seven minutes,” Schiller said. “They brought an AED [automated external defibrillator] and I shocked him twice and finally got a heartbeat, and they rushed him to the hospital.”

Schiller said that the experience was scary — even for a nurse with almost three decades of experience.

“I’m a small person, and the driver was big and heavy, so it took every ounce of energy I had to get any air into the man, but it was like I was acting on autopilot,” she said. “When you’re a nurse, you just do what you’re trained to do.”

Schiller later learned that she had saved the man’s life.

“That’s an awesome thing,” she said. “Every morning I ask God to let me make a difference, and most of the time I do, even if it’s just holding a patient’s hand and letting him know I care.”

Schiller worked on medical-surgical floors and in outpatient surgery before moving to the endoscopy unit at Henry Medical Center four years ago. She prepares patients, assists with surgical procedures and helps patients recover afterward.

Schiller credits her mother for inspiring her to become a nurse.

“My mom wasn’t a nurse, but she was a caregiver and always had a big heart,” she said. “Watching her take care of others all those years made me want to take after her in every way.”

Schiller has never left bedside nursing and has no intention of doing so.

“I couldn’t do nursing behind a desk,” she said. “I have to be hands-on, working with patients. Nursing is about caring and giving; it’s a lot of reassurance and compassion.”