A RACE AGAINST TIME
For Linda Keyes, MD, attending
emergency medicine physician at
Longmont United Hospital, one of the
most gratifying experiences of her
earthquake relief trip to Nepal in May
2015 was helping an expectant mother
get the lifesaving care she needed.
One day while in camp, Dr. Keyes
received word that a pregnant
woman she and a colleague had seen
two days earlier was unconscious in
her home. The physicians suspected
the woman had eclampsia, a
dangerous complication of pregnancy
in which high blood pressure
develops and causes seizures.
"Treatment for this problem is
emergency cesarean section and
intravenous magnesium," Dr. Keyes
says. "We knew we couldn't get to
her on foot or do anything with the
supplies we had."
The medical team requested a
helicopter. Dr. Keyes and a Nepali
colleague flew with the woman
and her husband to the capital,
Kathmandu. The patient had another
seizure in the ambulance en route
from the airport to the hospital, and
Dr. Keyes had to keep her airway
open and provide supplemental
oxygen to help her breathe.
"When we arrived at the hospital,
we turned the patient over to the
emergency department staff,"
Dr. Keyes says. "By the time we found
the waiting room for the operating
theater, the staff had delivered a
healthy baby. The next day, the
mother was awake and doing well."
Intersecting passions for medicine and mountains have taken
Linda Keyes, MD, from the front range of the Rockies to the
roof of the world.
In April 2015, Nepal experienced a devastating earthquake that killed almost 9,000 people
and left millions in need of basic services. One of the many foreigners to respond to the
disaster was Dr. Keyes, an attending emergency medicine physician at Longmont United
Hospital. Dr. Keyes fell in love with Nepal during a visit in 1994 and returned to the country
three times prior to the 2015 earthquake to provide healthcare and conduct research in
high-altitude medicine.
"I have many Nepalese friends and colleagues, and I feel very connected to Nepal,"
Dr. Keyes says. "Given my skills in emergency medicine and prior experience in the
country, I felt I had to help."
EMBODYING HOPE
Dr. Keyes spent two weeks in May 2015 in Nepal's remote Gorkha
district, site of the earthquake's epicenter, with a humanitarian
organization called NYC Medics Global Disaster Relief. Dr. Keyes
and her colleagues provided primary care to villagers who were
desperate for food, water, shelter and medicine.
"Although we dealt mostly with minor complaints, I think our
presence as foreign physicians who came all the way around the
world to help these patients was both tangibly and symbolically
important to them," Dr. Keyes says. "All patients, no matter
where they are in the world, need the same thing: a physician
who listens, cares and provides the best possible medical care
with the means available."
High-altitude
healing
303-651-5111 LUHCARES.ORG / 3
