Celebrating Our People – Meet Jenni

In the right place at the right time, off-duty Saint Joseph London nurse Jenni Hughes saved a baby’s life. She didn’t find out until afterward that it was kind of a family affair.

Jenni, operating room nursing supervisor at Saint Joseph London, was in the drive-through lane at a local fast-food chain in May when the driver in front of her got out of her car and screamed that her baby was choking. 

Identifying herself as a nurse, Jenni did the Heimlich maneuver on the toddler and out popped a sucker that had broken off the stick and lodged in the child’s airway. When the mom tearfully embraced Jenni and asked where she worked, she cried even harder.

It turns out that the hospital had saved the mom’s life when she began hemorrhaging after childbirth — with the same baby that Jenni had just helped.

But that’s not all, Jenni said. She had gotten off work early that day, a rarity for her, with a sick daughter at home who had asked for a soda from the restaurant. 

“I feel like that was absolutely divine intervention, that God just intended me to be there that day,” she said. “And it was right before Mother’s Day. I was very thankful the baby was OK.”

These kinds of connections are among the benefits of a community hospital like Saint Joseph London, Jenni added: “Being in a small town, you take care of your community and you take care of each other.” 

Since 2021, she has supervised a staff of about 30 with seven operating rooms, and is the board runner, sorting out doctors and rooms. The job is stressful and challenging, she acknowledged, but “It is rewarding knowing that you’re helping people.”

Before her current position, Jenni spent 14 years at Saint Joseph London as an emergency on-call nurse for endoscopy. She said she didn’t mind being on call seven days a week: “I always felt like if I get called in, it’s because someone needs me.”

It’s the same attitude that permeates her whole department, said Jenni. “Everyone works together as a team. There’s been many a time when people are walking out the door, the day is over, and they call with a trauma or emergency case … and everybody just turns right around and comes right back to the OR. Our No. 1 priority is that patient.”

Jenni, who was Employee of the Month and nominated for Leader of the Year this year, along with receiving a Daisy Award, holds an associate degree in nursing and plans to return to school this year for a bachelor’s degree. This is her 20th year in health care. She and her husband, Ricky, live in Corbin and have two children. She describes them as busy with their work, but “homebodies” in their spare time. 

Jenni said she appreciates the Saint Joseph values and points to a practice followed by her department that exemplifies humankindness. “We pray for our patients every morning when we have our morning huddle,” she said. “I think that’s important. And everybody will pray with their patients, if that’s what they want.”