A nursing student at the University’s Inverness campus, who saved her boyfriend’s life last year, will be capped by the Chancellor of the University, Dr James Naughtie, at a graduation ceremony to be held in St Andrew’s Cathedral on 4 November.
Jenna Mackay was sitting in her boyfriend’s home when he fell through a glass panel and severed the main artery of his left arm. David Mitchell, 20, passed out from loss of blood and Jenna leapt into action to save his life.
Miss Mackay says: “As David slipped, he put his arm out to save his fall and severed the main artery of his arm on the glass door panel. There was blood everywhere, pouring through a massive wound, and he was losing so much blood that he collapsed.
“There was washing on the table so I grabbed some T shirts but the wound was so big, almost right round his arm, that I also had to take three or four dishcloths to stem the bleeding.
“I honestly thought he was dead because I couldn’t find a pulse for a while.”
Jenna was only 18 at the time, one of the youngest students in the second year of a BSc Nursing degree at the University’s Inverness campus. Having completed her degree, she is now working as a relief staff nurse at Raigmore hospital - where they treated David after her life saving action – while she looks for a permanent job.
“After they treated him in the hospital, the consultant said that he would have died if it wasn’t for me,” says Miss Mackay.
“It’s thanks to my tutors that I was able to do what I did, especially Peter White, who drummed it into me that you need lots of pressure for a bleeding wound and to make it as tight as possible.”
After the graduation ceremony in the Cathedral Jenna will join her fellow graduates at a Reception in the Centre for Health Science, Old Perth Road, Inverness.