Isaiah Griffin is a seventh grader, who like most of his peers is looking forward to school break, and trying to steer clear of whatever virus is “going around.”
At his middle school in Jackson, Tennessee, it was the stomach flu.
The school nurse, Carrie Stephenson, had already seen three students catch it in just three days, so when she heard Isaiah was in to see her, she thought he was probably the fourth. After taking one look at him, Stephenson, who would normally send a kid with the stomach flu home, made a split second decision that saved his life.
Stephenson didn’t know what was wrong, but she knew it wasn’t the stomach flu. She explained that Isaiah was going in and out of consciousness, his eyes were “rolling around,” and his vomit didn’t look right to her. (Praise God for nurses who not only have to look at vomit, but can tell whether or not it looks strange.) She told The Jackson Sun, “I honestly thought he was fixin’ to die.”
Knowing that something was seriously wrong, the school nurse asked a staff member to call for an ambulance. She stayed right with Isaiah while they waited for medical assistance—monitoring his breathing, blood pressure and keeping him from falling asleep. “I treated Isaiah like he was my own child,” she said.