Last month, Kerhonkson resident Jessica Dearborn learned the importance of having an excellent small hospital in our village.

Dearborn, 41, had been working at Camper World in Kingston. She had been worn down by being on six days a week, but wasn’t too concerned. “I was really feeling fatigued. But I didn’t have any other symptoms,” she says.

Then, one morning, she started having alarming symptoms. “About twenty minutes after I woke up that morning, I started feeling this pain in my arm, and my shoulder and then in my chest.”

Dearborn knew what that could mean. She suspected a heart attack, and called a friend to pick her up and get her to Ellenville Hospital.

“It really hurt, so I knew it was serious,” she remembers.

She was rushed to the hospital and five minutes after going into the ER, Dearborn flatlined. Flatlined means dead.

That brought on the whole suite of emergency protocols – immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), defibrillation, chest compressions, and a call out for a medical helicopter.

Dearborn found death was not so scary. “It was just peaceful and black, it wasn’t painful.” She was only gone for less than a minute before she woke right up with a sharp pain.

“I was gone,” she says. “They literally brought me back to life. But though I was back alive, they couldn’t get a [intravenous needle] line into me so they had to go in through the knee bone, and I woke up while they were doing it and that really hurt! I was screaming bloody murder!”

Because Dearborn is allergic to morphine, she had to be given small doses of fentanyl for the pain. That continued as the helicopter made its way to Ellenville, ready to take her to Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie for surgery.

So how did she like her first helicopter ride?

“I hated it,” she says. “The helicopter nurse guy had the blood cuff on way too tight and he wasn’t nice about it. And laying on your back in a helicopter with a ceiling right above your face is uncomfortable too. But at that point I was more aggravated because of the helicopter nurse guy.”

Dearborn landed at Vassar in Poughkeepsie and was moved immediately inside for surgery. “They put in two stents. To do that, they went in through my wrist.” Another of miracle of modern medicine! “But I don’t remember anything about that. I remember I was in the operating room, and they told me something that I don’t remember – and then I woke up in the bed in my room.”

Dearborn was in the hospital for two days, from a Friday to a Sunday. And, looking back on this experience, she adds, “Those doctors and nurses who brought me back, well, they saved my life. Same for whoever managed to get that helicopter.”

She also praised Pastor Rip Noblin and his wife Missy from Shokan Wesleyan Church for stopping by and seeing her in Poughkeepsie. “They were so nice and they also prepared some meals for me, so I didn’t have to do that when I got home again.”

Lucky timing and quick thinking saved Dearborn’s life – a fact not lost on her. “I was only [at Ellenville Hospital] for a couple of minutes before I flatlined. Their rapid response is the reason I'm still alive. Those doctors and nurses who brought me back truly saved my life.”

Dearborn is recovering in the Ellenville Regional Cardiac Rehab program, a full-service, community-based cardiac rehab program. She has decided her days at Camper World are over. And her next move might be a matter of giving back. “I’m applying for a job at the hospital. And since I have a degree in applied science and medical billing, I’m so excited at the possibility that I can use my degree.”