Arizona State CU employee saves member's life

PHOENIX (5/21/09)--An Arizona State CU employee saved a member's life after going the extra mile to prevent her from taking what could have been a fatal dose of insulin.

Employee Christina Maulfair received a call from a pharmacy, saying that one of Arizona State CU's members, Denise Dewyer, had been given the wrong dose of her prescription. Dewyer, a diabetic, routinely purchased insulin from the pharmacy.

The dose she had just received was five times more potent than she needed. If she took the medicine, she would die, the pharmacy said.

"I never expected to receive a call like this," Maulfair said.

Dewyer used a credit union debit card to pay for her medicine. The pharmacy had no other contact information for her, so it looked up her payment records and found Dewyer paid with a credit union debit card.

Maulfair could not release Dewyer's contact information to the pharmacy to protect her privacy. Instead, she began attempting to contact Dewyer herself.

After a phone call to Dewyer went unanswered, Maulfair rushed to Dewyer's home. She knocked on the door repeatedly to no avail. Maulfair then wrote multiple notes to Dewyer and posted them at each entrance to her home.

Dewyer found the notes shortly after and contacted her pharmacy before taking the medicine.

"I want to express my deepest gratitude to Christina for going above and beyond and preventing me from using medication that could have killed me," Dewyer said. "It's not often that you get to thank someone for saving your life."

"Everyone here would have done exactly the same thing," Maulfair said. "I'm just so glad I was able to reach her in time."

Dewyer, who has had an account with Arizona State CU for more than 15 years, said she will not be going anywhere else to do her banking.

Arizona State CU, Phoenix, has $1.3 billion in assets.

courtesy of cuna.org