Lifesaving Care for a Longtime Friend

Ashley Gearhart, RN, honored with DAISY Award

John Garner has known Ashley Gearhart, RN, since she was a little girl.

He watched her and her brother grow up; he first met their father, Eric Gearhart, PA-C, in the U.S. Navy in 2001.

Both Eric and John retired from the Navy and joined Beaufort Memorial Lady’s Island Internal Medicine over a decade ago, so John is quite the opposite of a stranger to the Gearhart family.

He retired from the practice this year, and Ashley isn’t a little girl anymore; as of Friday, November 21, the Beaufort Memorial fourth floor night nurse is the recipient of the prestigious DAISY Award for Excellence in Nursing.

One day in late January 2025, John was experiencing a severe headache.

“I don’t get headaches,” he said. “I laid down, and when I tried to get up, I couldn’t even stand.”

After arriving at the ER with his “horrible” headache and elevated blood pressure, he was admitted to the hospital’s fourth floor for treatment and further evaluation. Within the span of a few hours, his heart rate sped up and he began feeling nauseous.

He was having a heart attack, but had none of the more common telltale signs like shortness of breath or chest pain.

Ashley, who has been a nurse at Beaufort Memorial for five years, assumed John’s care on her night shift and noticed that he had an unusual heart rate. She was immediately worried.

She pursued her concerns, resulting in John undergoing labs and an EKG, which revealed that he was having a heart attack. The emergency cardiac catheterization performed revealed a four-vessel blockage.

“My family was being told that it would be touch and go if I didn’t get that surgery soon,” John said. “With blood clots in my major artery, my heart muscle was dying.”

He was urgently transported to MUSC to undergo a bypass and then spent 23 days in cardiac ICU at MUSC.

“I was told by my cardiac team that I was at death’s door,” John wrote in his DAISY Award nomination for Ashley’s care. “It is no doubt that actions taken by Ashley saved my life, and for this I’m eternally grateful.”

Because of Ashley’s commitment to going that extra step in John’s care, she received a DAISY Award at the hospital on Nov. 21 in a small, emotional ceremony highlighting the impact she made going above and beyond.

“I’ve worked with nurses basically since the age of 16, and now I’m 70, and I think that sometimes, the care aspect and listening to the patient can get lost,” John said, applauding the entire unit for their dedication. “I think I might be an example of the importance of someone just paying a little extra attention.”

Ashley is a key presence on the hospital’s fourth floor, providing steady, reliable and patient-first care, no matter what.

“When she is on duty, I can sleep at night knowing that everything is going to be well, and I believe all the nurses on the unit also have those sentiments,” said 4T department director Julie Schott, BSN, RN, CNML, who also emphasized the importance of intuitiveness in nursing – a skill and ability that Ashley showed when caring for John and all of her patients.

“I am so proud,” Schott added. “I can’t even say how proud I am.”