Eleanor Cohen, on the scene at Dufferin station
How an ER nurse saved a man on Toronto subway tracks and still got to work on time
It was 6:30 a.m. on June 26, 2014. Dufferin Street subway station, Toronto. Eleanor Cohen, an emergency room nurse at Sunnybrook, was reading a book on the history of genetics while standing on the eastbound platform on her way to work.
She looked up from her book when she heard a sound she recognized immediately: the crack of a skull hitting a hard surface, something that happens occasionally in emergency rooms when people faint and fall to the floor. She saw a man lying unconscious on the westbound tracks.
With her emergency training, Eleanor knew what to do. She assessed the situation: Trains had just pulled out going east and west, and she figured she had about two minutes to rescue the man. After two minutes, the head trauma he likely suffered would make him vomit, he'd aspirate and go into cardiac arrest. "As an emergency nurse, I know how long two minutes takes. When you're not panicking, you have a better sense of real time."
Eleanor instructed a passenger on the subway platform to press the emergency button and another one to run up to the attendant's booth to shut the subway system down. Then, unperturbed by the danger of the high-voltage third rail that runs the trains, the 5'2", 100-pound nurse jumped down on the eastbound tracks and over the median to the other set of tracks. She scooped up the unconscious man and heaved him – she figured he weighed about 160 pounds – onto the median between the two tracks and turned him on his side to prevent aspiration.
Eleanor searched the man's pocket for ID, but didn't find any. When he came to, he was disoriented and agitated, flailing his arms. She could smell alcohol on his breath.
As the next trains slowly pulled into the station, she managed to keep him safe. "It was a very controlled situation because everyone had been informed of the emergency," she says.
When the EMS arrived, the first priority was to immobilize the man's spine. "When the EMS got down on the tracks, I helped them put the man on the boards and secure a collar around his neck, something that I do every day in the emergency room, except in reverse."
Eleanor's expert training and skills have been honed at Sunnybrook's emergency department under Dr. Jeffrey Tyberg, chief of the Department of Emergency Services. The department sees from 160 to 200 cases a day, totalling about 70,000 patients a year. It employs 100 nurses and 42 physicians, many of whom have travelled to, and worked in, disaster zones such as Haiti and Africa. The department works hand in hand with the trauma team, headed by Dr. Homer Tien, who is a colonel in the Canadian Forces Health Services and has served as a battlefield doctor in Afghanistan.
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As an emergency nurse,
When a trauma patient is en route to Sunnybrook, a specialized team – including a team leader, two emergency nurses and residents in orthopaedic surgery, neurosurgery, general surgery and anesthesiology – is mobilized to receive the patient. "Most of our patients come in as a result of car crashes and burns. But we also see stabbings, gunshot wounds and rare, complicated situations," she says. "We have more resources and expertise than any trauma centre in Canada that I know of."
Eleanor loves working in the emergency department because it fits her personality. "I'm hyper, curious and I need lots of stimulation, and I believe you have to have those characteristics in order to thrive and enjoy this environment. In emergency, there's always something new, stuff you sometimes can't control. We see the weirdest, worst, unluckiest things. Most times we get to fix them, and when we do, it's a pretty good feeling."
For her superheroine efforts at the subway station, Eleanor received a bravery award from 11 Division, Toronto Police Service. "It was amazing. I was in good company. There were bartenders and accountants who helped save people, too, and they didn't even have any training. That's really something."
As for the man saved, he was taken to hospital that morning and recovered with no long-term effects. After that emergency was over, Eleanor still had to get to work. So she ran the four blocks back to her home, washed her feet and arms of the soot from the train tracks, hopped in a cab and arrived a few minutes before her shift started at 7:30 a.m. "I was pretty pleased. I have never been late for work – ever!" •
This content was produced by The Globe and Mail's advertising department, in consultation with Sunnybrook. The Globe's editorial department was not involved in its creation.