Life Saved During Stop At Sobriety Checkpoint

On Friday, November 14th, the park conducted a sobriety checkpoint near the Folk Art Center along the parkway. One of the vehicles stopped was a Dodge sedan with two people in it. The driver, a 19-year-old woman, produced her driver’s license at the ranger’s request; meanwhile, a second ranger who’d approached on the passenger side saw a baggy of marijuana in the car in plain view. When the rangers asked the driver to pull over to the side, she began to have a seizure and eventually went into full cardiac arrest. The rangers quickly removed her from the car and began CPR. An ambulance was dispatched to their location and arrived shortly thereafter. A heart monitor revealed that she was still in arrest, so CPR was continued and an AED was employed. The woman was revived, then suffered a second cardiac arrest, then was revived again. She was taken to Mission Hospital in Asheville, where she was monitored throughout the weekend. The case ranger interviewed her and attending physicians on Monday and learned that she was suffering from an underlying medical problem and that marijuana had been present in her system. No other drugs or alcohol were found in the car.