DETROIT – Wayne State University medical student Melanie McQueen was in the right place at the right time to take a big leap into her field of study: Saving lives.
McQueen recently was shopping at a Walmart in Taylor when she happened to come across a startling Halloween display, or so she thought.
"I could only see the lady's head and it looked like a Halloween decoration at first because it was very blue," McQueen said.
The head she saw turned out to be real and attached to a 50-year-old woman who was in real trouble.
"She was pulse-less at the time," McQueen said.
It was a Monday and on the previous Friday McQueen had been taught a technique all future doctors must learn.
"We had gone through what's called ACLS training -- advanced cardiac life support training. We only had two days of instruction. The entire time I was thinking, 'This is so different than the manikin," she said. "So I started doing chest compressions. We did bagging inhalation. We defibrillated her three times. The way you know you're doing it right is when you start breaking ribs. I broke a rib and I remember thinking, 'Oh my gosh. That was a rib.' It was just like an eerie feeling ... all in the middle of Walmart. But, eventually she had a pulse."
McQueen still has a year left before taking the doctor's Hippocratic Oath.
She already has a life saved under her belt before she puts the word doctor before her name.