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Isabelle White, RN, and Ruth Allen, RN, work in California as nurses at Oakland A’s games. A handful of nurses across the United States work part time at what they call their “fun jobs” — major league baseball games. During each home game, these nurses tend to fans whose ailments range from minor scrapes to broken limbs to cardiac arrest.

As a nursing student in Dubuque, Iowa, Ruth Allen, RN, would slip out the window and sneak past the nuns to attend Chicago White Sox games. Fortunately, those days are long gone. For the past 25 years, she has combined her passions for nursing and baseball by working in California as a nurse at Oakland A’s games.

A handful of nurses across the United States work part time at what they call their “fun jobs” — major league baseball games. During each home game, these nurses tend to fans whose ailments range from minor scrapes to broken limbs to cardiac arrest. Once in a while, some of the nurses, such as those who work for the San Diego Padres, even treat the players.

“You never know what’s going to walk through the door,” said Isabelle White, RN, who, like Allen, is a nursing supervisor for the A’s.

For the A’s and Padres nurses, the most common injuries are falls and abrasions, and the most common treatments are Band-Aids and ice packs. But the nurses also have treated more serious — even life-threatening — injuries.

Allen recalls a man who came to the A’s nurses station without assistance and said he was having a heart attack. >>

He died after he was transported to the hospital. However, his family told the nurses he was a devoted baseball fan who would have wanted it that way.

Padres nurse Mary Meadows-Pitt, RN, remembers a fan who lost an eye when he was hit with a foul ball. The impact ruptured the man’s eyeball.

But despite such freak occurrences, the medical professionals at the Padres games have a “very good” patient save rate, Meadows-Pitt said, because they can respond to problems right away. The A’s nurses see only about two heart attacks per season, Allen said, because the fans are outside breathing plenty of oxygen.

On and off the field

During a game, the A’s typically have one or two first-aid stations at the 45,177-capacity Network Associates Coliseum, depending on the size of the crowd. One nursing supervisor is at each station, as well as a paramedic and an emergency medical technician who work for American Medical Response, which is contracted with the A’s organization. A medic and an EMT also are stationed on the field to tend to umpire, coach, and player injuries.

A dispatcher radioes the nurses when an emergency arises. The nurses, in turn, tell AMR and dispatch a medic and EMT, who are the first on the scene.

The medic and EMT then decide whether to bring the patient to the nurse, who treats the patient and decides whether he or she should be taken to the hospital.

The Padres’ system is more extensive, with three first-aid stations and five nurses at each game at the 42,000-capacity Petco Park. Two EMTs, who are contracted with San Diego Medical Services, one physician, and one nurse are at each station. Additionally, a charge nurse receives calls and dispatches the EMT crews, and a nurse is stationed in the dugout.

Meadows-Pitt says the first-aid stations are like emergency rooms, with their crash carts and drugs. The teams of medical professionals can literally care for a patient as they do in the hospital until the ambulance arrives, she said.