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16 ARCHBOLD
MEDICAL CENTER
FOR CAIRO
elementary school
teacher Tangela Smiley-Corker, it was a
typical Tuesday. The 42-year-old mother
of two was preparing lunch for her
family.
And then, she passed out. She doesn’t
remember what happened next.
“My body didn’t send any warning
signs. I didn’t have any symptoms,” said
Tangela. “The last thing I remember was
preparing lunch for my family. Next thing
I knew, I was waking up in a hospital
bed.”
Tangela was rushed to Archbold’s
Grady General Hospital in Cairo, where
she was intubated and placed on a
ventilator. And because of the severity of
her condition, she was transferred to the
Emergency Department (ED) at Archbold
Memorial Hospital in Thomasville.
As a team of Archbold medical spe-
cialists quickly assembled in preparation
for Tangela’s arrival, the physicians were
notified their patient had survived the
unthinkable—five separate cardiac arrest
events requiring CPR—and all during
her short ambulance ride from Cairo to
Thomasville. The prevailing thought was
Tangela was having a heart attack.
But when she arrived at Archbold
Memorial Hospital, the story quickly
changed.
It was serious
Archbold Emergency Room physician
Sanford Hawkins, MD, and interventional
cardiologist Clay Sizemore, MD, imme-
diately evaluated Tangela. A bedside
echocardiogram quickly ruled out heart
attack as the cause for Tangela’s sudden
TANGELA
SMILEY-
CORKER
FOUND
OUT THAT
MEDICINE
IS A TEAM
SPORT.
like no other