Michael Bayes noticed the shaking woman walking up to the COSAC Homeless Shelter. As he opened the door, her body began to fold and her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
\nBayes, 61, in a wheelchair, attempted to grab the woman and guide her body to the pavement. She was having a seizure.
\n\u201cWith Lisa this happens everyday,\u201d Bayes said. \u201cI try to help as much as I can. It hurts to see people sick.\u201d
\nThe woman is Lisa Michne. She is 41 years old, and like Bayes, lives at COSAC, 1203 North Federal Highway. She\u2019d been released from the hospital the night before for the same thing. Seizures.
\nMichael Payne, the head security of the shelter, said Michne has had more than 10 seizures this week. For anyone unfamiliar with homeless shelters, the figure seems outrageous. But for Payne, it\u2019s routine.
\n\u201cSeizures are a part of the job,\u201d Payne said. \u201cIt happens three to four times a day.\u201d
\nBecause the seizures are constant, and because the reasons for the seizures vary, the staff created different codes by which to call them.
\nClifford Pieczarka, a special security guard who\u2019s been with the shelter for 15 years and responded to Michne\u2019s call, said each code corresponds with different pain levels.
\n\u201cCode one starts at a lesser amount of pain, and code three is a dire emergency. Their well-being is in danger,\u201d said Pieczarka.
\nMichne\u2019s case was dispatched as a code three.
\nFor all seizures, the staff keeps what they call a \u201ccardiac box\u201d beside the front desk. It stores a portable defibrillator, a blood pressure cup, and trauma kit among other things.
\nDaletha Brown, a certified nurse at the shelter, explained that in some cases the staff needs to resuscitate the person before the ambulance arrives.
\n\u201cWe use CPR and sternum rubs,\u201d said Brown, adding that\u2019s when the cardiac box becomes necessary. But Michne was coherent as paramedics arrived. Her code three slowly dwindled as she recognized faces and understood what had just occurred.
\nBrown attributes Michne\u2019s frequent seizures to changes in medication.
\n\u201cIf you take medications for so long, your body slowly becomes immune to them,\u201d said Brown, who\u2019s seen Michne – and the medication she takes – come and go from the shelter for over two years.
\nThe Hollywood Fire Rescue truck lifted Michne before the setting sun, and before a day went by she was sent back to the hospital again.
\n\u201cThis is just something you grow adept to,\u201d said Pieczarka. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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