Island nurse recognized by State Police

A Vineyard nurse was recognized by Massachusetts State Police for saving a person last summer in Woods Hole. 

Laura Kelley, a nurse at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and a nurse practitioner at Vineyard Medical Care, was recognized with the Massachusetts State Police Lifesaving Award for saving a person on June 2, 2023. 

Kelley was recognized at Massachusetts State Police headquarters in Framingham on June 5.

Kelley told The Times that a man fell into cardiac arrest last summer in Woods Hole on a crowded Steamship Authority shuttle before it left for the Palmer Avenue parking lot. 

Kelley, who had been recertified in CPR a week prior to the incident, and a good Samaritan woman laid the man on the bus seats. Kelley ordered another man to bring over a state trooper who was at the terminal area. Kelley conducted CPR on the man, and the trooper helped once he arrived.

“We got a pulse back by the time EMS arrived,” Kelley said. 

Kelley said she never knew what happened to the man after the incident until she received the letter from State Police regarding the award a few weeks ago. 

Kelley said she was honored to have been recognized for what she did. 

“I think I was just really lucky being at the right place at the right time,” she said about saving the man after her shift at Vineyard Medical Care. “I thought my day was done, but it wasn’t.”