Dailey

ELKINS — Friends and proteges are remembering longtime Randolph County Coroner Brenda Dailey, 68, who passed away unexpectedly at her residence in Junior on Feb. 5.

Dailey, who served as the coroner/medical examiner for Randolph County since the 1990s, was a renowned emergency squad worker, nurse and educator.

Denise Campbell, who has been a nurse in the area for the past 32 years, said Dailey did what she was born to do.

“She had just such a great personality,” Campbell told The Inter-Mountain. “Her interaction with the people who would drive the ambulances, the EMTs, the volunteers, and the people in the emergency department, was like no other.

“She was the one, you knew she knew what she was talking about. She always did what was best for her patients at all times, and you could tell that being in the medical field was what she was meant to do, it was her calling.”

Campbell said Dailey was the sole reason she decided to get into the field of nursing.

“Her kindness and her going above and beyond is like nothing I had ever seen before,” Campbell said. “When I was a young nurse, I just told myself that I wanted to be like her. She would get the gloves and blow them up like a balloon and do whatever she could to make a patient feel more comfortable. She was kind to everybody, no matter who they were, and she treated all her patients with respect and dignity. It just totally inspired me to get into nursing.”

Campbell said it didn’t take her long to notice Dailey when she first started working at the registration desk at Davis Memorial Hospital in the late 1980s.

“When I went to work at the hospital for the first time, she just stood out from all of the other nurses I came in contact with,” Campbell said. “I would just watch how she would interact with all the different types of patients and it really amazed me.

“She even inspired me to take some of the emergency classes that I didn’t need because she was so encouraging to people who wanted to get into nursing and healthcare. Just seeing her out in the field making a difference as a paramedic and then seeing her as a nurse was like no other. She was a shining star.”

Households across the United States were able to witness Dailey at work when she and other Randolph County Emergency Squad personnel were featured on the network television show “Rescue 911” in December 1991.

The episode featured a reenactment of Dailey responding to a call for 3-year old Brittany Eichelberger, who on Christmas Eve, 1990, was found near death in a snow drift outside her family’s home in Elkins. Her core body temperature was only 74 degrees and her heart had stopped, as she was declared clinically dead.

Dailey was the first to treat Eichelberger and was quoted on the “Rescue 911” episode saying, “Everything that was going through my mind was, ‘Please, God, this is a kid. It’s Christmas Eve, don’t do this to me.’ I didn’t know if I could handle this.”

Campbell said she was at the hospital the day the call came in for Eichelberger.

“I was actually working at the registration desk the day when they found the little girl outside on Christmas Eve,” she said. “Because Brenda was a paramedic as well, she responded to the call. I remember just listening to Brenda’s voice when they were calling in to the ER. And when the little girl started responding, they were all just ecstatic in the ambulance.”

Randolph County Sheriff Rob Elbon said he had worked with Dailey over the years while she was serving as medical examiner/coroner.

“Brenda was awesome,” Elbon told The Inter-Mountain. “She was just a good-hearted person that would help anybody at any time. She was also a great paramedic, great nurse, and if you ever needed back-up, she was right there, I can guarantee you that.”

Randolph County Emergency Squad Director Kurt Gainer, who started his career with the RCES in 2000 and has been director for the past 14 years, noted all the different things Dailey did for the county.

“Brenda served as the medical examiner or coroner for the county for a long time,” Gainer told The Inter-Mountain. “I know she started as an EMT in the early 1980s and was with the Randolph County Emergency Squad through the 1990s. She was also a training officer for EMS for a long time, and worked at Davis Medical as an RN.”

Randolph County Commission President David Kesling said Dailey will be sorely missed.

“Brenda was a valued asset in Randolph County for a long time,” Kesling told The Inter-Mountain. “She will be missed by the Randolph County Commission and the county as a whole. She did a lot of good things for the county for many years.”

The Tomblyn Funeral Home of Elkins is in charge of the arrangements for Dailey.