Geneica Williams and Relicia Knox attended Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley’s fundraiser in Oakland to show their support for the veteran lawmaker who supported their successful recent contract campaign.
Then duty called.
As Williams was finishing her dinner at Everett & Jones on December 7, she heard someone screaming to find out if there were any doctors or nurses inside the restaurant.
“I heard that and just ran over there,” said Williams, a nurse who works at Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County. She arrived to find a woman laying on the floor and Knox, her fellow-nurse at Santa Rita, attending to her.
The nurses didn’t have emergency equipment to do a full assessment, but they could tell she needed immediate medical attention.
“When I asked her to squeeze my hand, she wasn’t able to do it,” Williams said.
The nurses feared the woman might be having a seizure. It took some prodding, but they convinced her that she needed to take an ambulance to the hospital.
Tending to people experiencing medical emergencies is second nature for Williams. She does it all the time at work, and has been pressed into duty once inside a Costco and another time at an airport.
Williams said she left quickly after the ambulance arrived to little fanfare from the other guests. But later that night, a member of the Oakland City Council called Aladrian Hillmon, the NUHW organizer who accompanied the nurses to the fundraiser, to thank them for helping the woman, who is a member of his staff.
“(The Councilmember) said that he owes a debt of gratitude to our members and is very happy that they were in attendance that evening,” Hillmon said.
As for Williams, she’s just glad that she and Knox could assist the woman and help her make the right decision to go to the hospital. “Just knowing that she’s OK is good enough for me,” Williams said.
