Against all odds: Mayo nurse, student reunited after stint in ICU

May 6—EAU CLAIRE — When UW-Eau Claire senior nursing student Briunna Wells left the intensive care unit at Mayo Clinic in Eau Claire in November 2019, recovering from pneumonia and a ruptured throat, she didn't think she'd ever find the nurses who cared for her while she was unconscious.

Neither did Sara Matthieu, a nurse in Mayo Clinic's Eau Claire ICU.

Matthieu had helped care for a scared and confused Wells that November, reassuring the college student that she'd be healthy again and that she wouldn't have to drop out of nursing school.

"It never dawned on me that I'd ever see her again," Matthieu said Thursday. "We don't often get to meet our patients after they leave. Most of the time we don't know what happens to them, or if they do OK."

By sheer coincidence, the two women would end up meeting again.

A year and a half after her ICU stay, Wells is a UW-Eau Claire senior nursing student and working as a patient care assistant at Mayo Clinic in Eau Claire. One day she impulsively decided to attend a different exercise class than usual at her gym. She also stayed late after the class to chat, "which I don't normally have time to do," she noted.

But Wells didn't know Matthieu was also in that same class.

The two coincidentally struck up a conversation afterward. It didn't take long until they realized the thread connecting them.

"Sara mentioned something about working for Mayo ... and in the ICU," Wells remembered. "Ultimately, my goal was to get to know who my nurses were. I just wanted to say thank you for everything they did for me."

Wondering if Matthieu knew any of the nurses who had treated her, Wells told Matthieu about her 2019 experience in the Mayo Clinic ICU.

"Sara just said, 'No way,'" Wells remembered. "She said she was one of the nurses that took care of me. In that moment ... I don't know how to describe the feeling. I was so overwhelmed, so thankful and so happy that I had stayed after class to make small talk. Lo and beyond, Sara was one of the nurses who took care of me in the ICU."

Matthieu, who is now nursing supervisor in the Mayo Clinic ICU in Eau Claire, was equally shocked.

"I realized she was talking about not only my unit, but she was talking about me, talking about nurses who are my friends who I've worked with for a long time," Matthieu said. "A lot of times you see things that don't go well, and you question. 'Why do I do this, why am I here?' Then you meet someone like Bri who you directly took care of."

A guiding light

A day or two after she started feeling a stuffy nose, fever and body aches, Wells began to struggle to breathe. She was admitted into Mayo Clinic's emergency department in Eau Claire on Nov. 10, 2019.

"I expected to get some steroids or medication, or if it was an infection some type of antibiotics, and then go home," she remembered.

After blood work and a CT scan, the physician told Wells she had to be admitted into the ICU. Even after receiving high-flow oxygen, a dizzy, lightheaded Wells' blood-oxygen level was decreasing by the second. Doctors told her there was a "very good chance" she'd need to be intubated and put on a ventilator, she said.

"I very distinctly remember the day that Bri came in," Matthieu said. "We were all very worried about her. She kept saying to me, 'I'm a nursing student and I have a test tomorrow.' At one point I leaned down and said, 'This is going to get you out of that test. You're not going to fail. It's going to be OK.'"

Wells — who did not end up being intubated — doesn't remember much of her stint in the ICU, only waking up on her third day there, weak and tired. She was diagnosed with atypical pneumonia, a ruptured airway and pneumomediastinum, a condition where air leaks into the chest cavity and causes tiny air sacs in the lungs to rupture.

"I received nothing but patient-centered care, and that's what nurses are taught to do. I really want to recognize the health care staff at Mayo Clinic and the university for all they've done for me," Wells said.

Wells said her time in the ICU made her belief in a nursing career even stronger.

Years ago, she'd had to reapply to get into UW-Eau Claire's nursing program, and remembers feeling conflicted during her stressful years in school: "I asked myself multiple times, 'Am I cut out to be a nurse? ... Is this the path I can take to effectively help people?'"

But finally leaving the hospital felt like a sign.

"I felt like it was God's way of telling me, this is what I need to do," Wells said. "This is my purpose in life."

Wells is set to graduate from UW-Eau Claire's nursing program in December. She's aiming to earn a doctorate and become a nurse practitioner.

But before then, she hopes to work in an emergency department, trauma center or ICU, and work with Matthieu: "I want to be able to give the care I received to other patients."

She and Matthieu plan to stay close friends.

"I'm hoping that there is a graduation we can attend, because she has nurses that are insanely proud of her for both her physical and mental strength," Matthieu said.