Nurse Sits Beside Stream Of Patients Some Racers Decide They Need Help; Others Are Told They Should Pull Over

Fifteen minutes into the Bloomsday race Sunday morning, Eileen Ackerman spotted her first patient in the crowd.

She motioned over the thin boy with carrot-colored hair and a bloody nose.

“It just always does this,” Connor Haffey said.

He came to the right woman.

Ackerman, a Bloomsday nurse volunteer, put an arm around the 11-year-old’s shoulder and led him to the race’s first medical station near Riverside Avenue and Government Way.

A thin blue sheet covered the ground. Medical supplies were piled on top.

Medical workers were prepared for the usual host of asthma attacks, scraped knees, sprained ankles and pulled muscles. They kept sugar cubes and glucose on hand for diabetics in trouble.

Ackerman pressed cotton gauze to Connor’s nose. When the bleeding stopped, she swabbed the inside of one nostril with Vaseline to keep it moist.

Minutes later, the boy was back in the race. “I’ve had a lot of mothering experience,” Ackerman said afterward.

She didn’t want to give her age but gave some clues: She’s a mother of four, with eight grandchildren. She can’t remember when she first volunteered for Bloomsday - 13 or 14 years ago, she thinks.

The retired East Valley School District nurse began pitching in after becoming envious of students returning to school wearing Bloomsday T-shirts.

“I thought, ‘I’m kind of a slug; I really don’t want to run,’ but I thought they’d probably need some nurses.”

Sunday morning, Ackerman worked with Dr. Rex Stahly and eight other medical workers from the South Hill, Valley and North Side.

During the first moments of the race, Ackerman clapped her latex-gloved hands, cheering on the racers.

But as the crowd thickened, Ackerman looked for trouble. “Shoes untied!” Ackerman yelled at a boy.

Ackerman saw a young woman struggling to walk. “Are you all right? Are you all right?” she asked.

The woman kept walking.

“She didn’t look all right, but she wouldn’t stop,” Ackerman said.

But many others gratefully accepted her help. She bandaged blistered feet, dressed skinned knees and cared for an elderly man who had fallen, cutting his face.

Ackerman won over runners with her hard work. She even got a big hug from 11-year-old grandson Brian, who stopped by to say hello.

“She’s the best,” he said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo