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Good blood: a life saved at Dixie

StoryCorps, Dixie Regional Medical Center
STORYCORPS
/
UTAH PUBLIC RADIO

Chelsea Bundy was a 3-year-old girl from St. George when she met Thomas Taylor. Taylor worked at Dixie Regional medical Center. He came to the StoryCorps booth in St. George to tell her story.

Chelsea was at a family outing when she was hit by one of her cousins driving an ATV- crushed between a fire hydrant and the ATV. She was rushed to the hospital, where she was in critical condition.

"She arrived at the hospital, she was unconscious, very pale. Her tummy was starting to swell because there was some internal bleeding," Taylor said. "The ER doctor said she probably was not going to survive."

Taylor worked at the laboratory, and said he was on duty when Bundy came in. He went to the ER to take her blood, but because her veins had collapsed, he could only get her blood type -- O negative.

Bundy was rushed into surgery, and when she came out, the hospital staff was unsure if she had been without oxygen to her brain for too long. But when she was being moved from surgery to her room, she started waking up, and he said that's when they knew she was a fighter.

"The anesthesia got a little light on her, and she started struggling and flailing around. She actually tore her arterial line out of her wrist, and they had to put that back," he said. "But everyone was really glad to see they had a fighter on their hands."

Bundy was released from the hospital, and her family moved to Nevada. But about 15 years later, she came back to St. George to attend school at Dixie State University. She has since graduated, and lives elsewhere.