HeartBeat

Dennis Bippes and his wife,
Christine, woke up to the
sound of their coffee maker,
as they usually do. Soon, Dennis
saw something that he didn’t expect
but definitely recognized: the signs of
stroke. As Christine was making the bed,
she stared blankly into the middle of the
room. “I asked her if she was OK,” he
recalls, “and slurred words came out.”
Although the suddenness of the
stroke is something that will take a
while to get over, Dennis says, he knew
what to do in that moment. He dialed
911. It was 8:15 a.m.
Christine, 75, was aware of her husband
telling her she had to go to the
hospital. Her memory of events over the
next few hours, however, is fragmented.
She remembers being loaded into an
ambulance and then a helicopter to fly
her to Providence Sacred Heart Medical
Center in Spokane. She also remembers
waking up and being told that she would
make a full recovery, thanks to rural
medicine emergency services and a
real-time video connection to neurology
stroke specialists at Sacred Heart.
ADDRESSING RURAL
CHALLENGES
The Bippeses live 5 miles outside of
Naples, a small town in northern Idaho,
closer to the Canadian border than to
Spokane. The ambulance had to get
there from Bonners Ferry, about 10 miles
away, and then travel 26 miles to Bonner
General Hospital in Sandpoint.
En route, the crew called the hospital
to describe Christine’s condition. The
call allowed Mike Taylor, emergency
department director at Bonner General,
to initiate the hospital’s stroke protocol.
This included a call to neurologist
Cynthia Murphy, M.D., at Sacred Heart.
When the ambulance rolled in, the
team was in place.
It was 9:16 a.m.
Dennis and Christine Bippes
enjoy a stroll with their daughter,
Jennifer McHan (right).
Cynthia Murphy, M.D., was
ready for a real-time video
visit with Christine Bippes
as soon as Christine arrived
at her local hospital,
70 miles away.
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