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Off Duty Doctor Comes to Aid of German Woman

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March 30, 2012
Chuck Roberts, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center Public Affairs

LANDSTUHL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER, Germany – Donald Bittner has been a doctor since 1981, but the Navy captain had never practiced medicine like he did March 26 while driving to a local restaurant with his wife.

They were passing through the village of Bann when they noticed several people crowded around a man performing CPR to an elderly woman beside the road. When he approached the scene and announced he was a physician, the daughter told him the woman was her mother and had collapsed only a few minutes prior.

Bittner quickly assessed the woman who was not breathing, had no pulse and had turned blue. After succeeding in opening an airway blocked by her dentures, Bittner performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and assumed control of CPR procedures with the help of the initial responder who assisted when he became fatigued from the continued effort.

After about 25 minutes an ambulance arrived and they were able to assess she was in ventricular fibrillation, which is when a weakened heart flutters or quivers and is unable to pump blood. However, the defibrillator in the ambulance was inoperable to apply the needed electrical shock to restore the heart. 

Bittner continued CPR until a second ambulance arrived and the defibrillator was successfully applied to initiate a heartbeat, a pulse and resume breathing on her own.

The patient was taken to nearby St. Johannis Krankenhaus where the Bittners visited about an hour later and met the emergency room doctor who said the patient was in stable condition but had transferred to Westpfalz Klinikum in Kaiserslautern for further care.  It was there that Dr. Bittner met with the family and received a tearful, grateful hug from the daughter.  He said they were the ones he was thinking of as he performed CPR as his wife Leticia held the IV bag above.

“My concern was for the family,” said Bittner. “I saw my own self in that situation, and the feeling of helplessness the family must have felt in being there. It really made me feel bad for them that they had to witness that.” 

Although Bittner said he has performed CPR a few times during his career, to include reviving a patient in the operating room who had gone into cardiac arrest, it was the first time while off duty.

“In a hospital you have that sterile setting. When you’re outside the hospital it’s a whole different thing. It’s not sterile anymore. You become actually involved with the family, so the whole emotional experience is completely different.”

The timing of the incident, said Bittner, proved interesting. Just four days prior he completed a basic life support refresher class that included new procedures he applied on the scene.

The events also happened soon before his scheduled departure from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center where he is serving a one-year rotation as deputy director for Navy Expeditionary Medical Unit 12 supporting the wartime effort in treating Wounded Warriors.

“For me it was a culmination of my time here because I felt so good to be able to give something back to the German community that has been so nice to me,” said Bittner. 

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Comments: 8

by MKL on April 4, 2012 :

What a heart-warming story! Hurray for yet another hero! And many thanks to him for his service, as my son came through Landstuhl Regional Medical Center on June 25-26 enroute to Walter Reed where he still rehabs. (Capt. Bittner's experience brought back memories of my own Army Captain son's birth at Klinikum Fulda.)

by Deven Seymour on April 6, 2012 :

Go Doc Bittner! While deployed with him in Afghanistan, he performed miracles often, including saving a local boys hands, mangled by farm equipment. He is a class act all the way.

by Trini on April 6, 2012 :

You don't stop amazing me Captain.

by Donald on April 5, 2012 :

Dr Bittner was my Medical Officer in Afghanistan. He is what every physician should aspire to be. I'm proud to know him.

by EO1 Inghels on April 12, 2012 :

Way to CAPT. Bittner. Thanks for being with us in Afghanistan, and for everything else in between.

by Celia Argueta on April 18, 2012 :

Dr. Bittner your family here at St. Jude Heritage Medical Group are so proud of you and we can't wait until you come back and work with us again. We missed you!

by niki on April 19, 2012 :

DR Bittner you are an extraordinary human being and anyone that has had the pleasure of knowing you would know that you always go above and beyond for anyone be it a patient a friend or family your heart is bigger then the eye can see....your compassion for others makes you bigger then life. Dr B I've always said I'd pick you to be in my life boat simlpy because you rock and are an amazing human being of course..that is one lucky lady she had an angel in her corner....

by Kim on April 18, 2012 :

You make the world a better place!

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