A Pickens County sheriff’s deputy is improving Tuesday, days after she suffered serious complications during routine heart surgery and was revived.
Deputy Cassie Defoor underwent surgery Thursday to adjust part of her pacemaker and doctors hit an artery, causing her to bleed out in the operating room, according to the auxiliary unit of the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office. Doctors were able to revive her with CPR and transfusions, giving her a total of 40 units of blood.
Defoor, a single mother to a young son, has dealt with a congenital heart issue since childhood, Pickens sheriff’s Capt. Kris Stancil said. She was fighting for life in a medically induced coma for several days following the surgery, but Defoor is getting stronger each day.
On Tuesday, doctors removed her from a heart bypass machine and turned a ventilator down to the lowest setting.
“Her heart is strong enough to where it’s working without the machine,” Stancil said. “She has moved around some and started to come back, but she’s not fully alert or awake yet.”
Deputies are hopeful an MRI will give doctors a better idea of any damage to Defoor’s brain the ordeal in the operating room may have caused.
Defoor has been a Pickens County deputy for about two years and serves in the uniform patrol division. Before that, she worked as a detention officer in Gordon County. She’s family, Stancil said.
“You hear it described as the thin blue line. It’s moments like this is when you really see that come into play,” he said. “Standing beside one another, the same as you know they would if it were you or your family member.”
The sheriff's auxiliary unit, a nonprofit organization that supports the sheriff's office, started a GoFundMe page to raise money for Defoor's medical expenses. As of Tuesday, the campaign had raised nearly $10,000.
The agency has pulled together to make sure an off-duty deputy is always at the hospital to support Defoor’s family, sitting together and making snack runs. Usually, it’s more than one deputy, Stancil said. Law enforcement officers from other jurisdictions have also dropped in from time to time.
“At one time I counted 11 different sheriff’s office employees, from detention officers to command staff coming and staying several hours,” he said.
They are also coordinating meals and have discussed organizing a blood drive. Stancil said the sheriff’s office will better know how to support Defoor once the MRI results are in. For now, they are asking the community to keep her in their thoughts and prayers.
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