Age: 22 Year Diagnosed: 2010 Location: San Clemente, Ca
“Two weeks into my freshman year of college, I passed out while I was surfing due to a high blood sugar. After being unconscious in the water for almost a minute, good samaritans spotted me and pulled me from the water. I was immediately transported to the emergency room with a blood sugar reading of 532. The medical staff took my pump off of me and gave me only one injection of insulin during the entire 12 hours I was at the facility, causing me to deteriorate within a few hours, and resulted with me in DKA being transported to the ICU at 3 am. After getting my blood sugars in control during my ICU stay, the focus was turned to addressing any damage within my body caused by the drowning incident. To everyone's surprise, I only had a minor amount of water in my lungs and my breathing recovered within the next 6 months. I was told by all medical staff treating me that it was truly a miracle I was alive. Every day since the incident I thought about the people who pulled me from the water and saved my life, but I never knew who did it or how to get in touch with them, that is until I decided to see a new hairdresser four years later. This new hairdresser and I were talking about diabetes when she told me the only interaction she had with a type 1 was four years prior, when a young girl went unconscious in the water while she and her family were at the beach. My jaw immediately dropped as I knew, by some miracle, I had found the people responsible for saving my life. It turns out her 5 year-old son saw me roll of my surfboard into the water and alerted his parents that I had not come back up. After searching the water, they spotted me and immediately pulled me from the water, giving me another chance at life. I tell people this story for two reasons. First, because it is pretty crazy that I was able to meet and thank those who saved my life after four years of wondering who they were. And secondly, because it shows diabetics the danger of uncontrolled blood sugars and that as type 1's, we cannot always rely on medical staff to understand how to treat our condition. Many emergency rooms do not know how to treat type 1 diabetes properly, and it is our responsibility to advocate for our own health to avoid situations where the ignorance of medical staff costs us our health.”