The stories we will share with you are true situations. Some stories are heartwarming, some are not so heartwarming. But all are true!
The emotional toll of running an inn is so high that most innkeepers seem to burn out around the fifth year. If you try explaining this to an aspiring innkeeper, they don't understand. Veterans innkeepers immediately identify with this concept. If one more person asks, "What's your real job?," we'll just lay down on the floor and jerk all over! With this in mind, we're going to share an experience that happened to us in our seventh year of innkeeping.
We were just plain burned out. The tolls of being on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year finally caught up with us.
Our solution was to lease a home nearby to distance ourselves from the inn for a while to recharge our bodies and souls. We hired live-in innkeepers and away we went. Our new schedule would be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, with Wednesdays off.
One particular week, Frank decided to go in on his Wednesday off to take care of the lawn. Being the salesman he is, Frank took the opportunity to go in early while guests were still having breakfast to "shmooze" for a while.
One couple was celebrating their first anniversary. Turns out they met the same way we met. She was running an inn and he was a salesman who happened to stay at her inn. They talked and exchanged stories. After breakfast was over, Frank left the husband sitting on the front porch and started to take care of the lawn.
Before too long, Frank heard the sound of metal striking glass. He went to check on the noise and found the gentleman he left on the porch sprawled out on his back, unconscious.
Frank immediately laid him out on the porch and checked his vital signs. No detectable heartbeat, and he was not breathing! Frank immediately instructed our innkeepers to call 911. At almost the same time, a nurse staying as a guest came down and offered assistance. Frank did mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while the nurse pumped his chest in efforts to restore a heartbeat.
Meanwhile, his wife had been upstairs showering and came out to find him. She stepped out the front door and was greeted by Frank and a guest desperately trying to save her husband's life. While these heroic efforts were unfolding, a priest left the house next door and saw the emergency. The priest came to their sides and administered last rites as the rescue attempts continued.
Emergency personnel finally arrived 20 minutes later (they were located just over a mile away). The patient was transported to the closest hospital for care.
While this was taking place, I happened to call the inn to check on things. The innkeepers advised me Frank was administering CPR to one of our guests, rescue was on the way, and the guest would be taken to a particular hospital. Having never met this set of guests, I asked their names and immediately drove to the hospital to stay with the wife while the emergency room treated her husband. Upon walking in the door and introducing myself to the wife, the doctor came over to us and advised us that her husband had died.
What could I say? I was speechless. She was in shock. I stayed with her while the hospital contacted her family. We spent hours walking around the parking lot just talking -- about anything -- until her family arrived. Her family escorted her back to the inn, gathered her belongings, and took her home -- without her husband of one year.
Frank will never forget those guests. He forever wonders if he could have saved our guest if he had done something differently. The answer to this question is a resounding "no," but it doesn't change the second guessing and wondering through the years. I will never forget our guests either.
Those hours following our guest's death were the most intense moments in our entire careers as innkeepers. It was certainly a test of our dedication to our profession and whether we were worthy of this profession known as innkeeping.
We feel we should apologize for the depressing nature of this experience. On the other hand, we feel duty-bound to share this experience with you.
Innkeepers have a duty to care for their guests. This isn't limited to breakfast and a clean bed. All innkeepers and their staff should take a first aid and CPR course. Call your local Red Cross and find out where these courses are offered. Pay your staff to attend. You'll never be sorry.
The Kovaciks run Commerce Team, a "no commission" consulting team specializing in bed and breakfasts.
