Taking Her Customers’ Needs to Heart

Maria “Mia” Ruffier noticed her customer was having a hard time speaking one day in March. He was stuttering. A Board Assistant in the Clerk of the Board of Supervisor’s Office, Ruffier didn’t know if this was his normal speaking style or if the elderly gentleman was a little nervous.

As Ruffier, who is bilingual in English and Spanish, went through his passport application, she spoke with the man in his native Spanish. Ruffier spends the busy lunch hour – noon to 1 p.m. -- each day processing passports at the County Administration Center. She typically helps between four and seven customers a day.

A few minutes into their exchange, Ruffier noticed the man’s face losing color. It seemed to be turning gray. He reminded her of her late grandfather, who she used to tell to slow down and take care of himself.

She asked the man if he was feeling OK. No, he said. “I don’t feel good,” he replied in Spanish.

Turns out he’d felt dizzy the night before, too. She offered him a glass of water and he accepted. A few more minutes later, his application was ready to go and so the man started to get up. He began pushing himself up and out of a chair when the whole right side of his body just shut down. Ruffier gasped and leaned toward him, trying to prop him up.

"The muscles weren’t working,” Ruffier said. “They weren’t responding.”

“Siéntese, siéntese,” she told him in Spanish, meaning sit down, sit down.

Ruffier ran around the desk, calling out to her supervisor: “my customer almost fell over!” He had become dizzy and lost feeling in his arm, he said. He didn’t know what happened. She pulled up a chair and sat with him until Sheriff’s deputies and paramedics arrived. She explained to them the situation and the symptoms the man was experiencing.

Ruffier called the customer’s wife and told her what was going on. She put the man’s belongings in a plastic bag and gave it to the paramedics, who took him out in a stretcher. He thanked her.

“I almost wanted to cry,” she said.

Turned out the man had a history of heart trouble. He’d had two heart attacks. This time, Ruffier believes he was having a stroke, though she lost touch with him so she doesn’t know for sure. But his symptoms fit some of the key warning signs of a stroke, which according to the National Stroke Association, are:

• numbness or weakness in the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
• confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
• trouble seeing in one or both eyes
• trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
• severe headache with no known cause

Ruffier said she was just glad this happened at the County Administration Center, where he was surrounded by people who could help. He had traveled by himself from his home in National City that day.

For her actions, she received a quarterly Clerk’s award. She called that humbling. Clerk of the Board Thomas J. Pastuszka said his department’s mission is to provide consistently excellent service to customers, and he praised Ruffier’s readiness to step in and help.

“In this situation, Mia's attentiveness and quick action made a significant impact on this gentleman's life,” Pastuszka said. “I am proud of her and all our staff who work hard to create a positive experience for our customers.”

Ruffier said she did what she would want someone else to do for her. “He was my priority,” she said.

“My mother used to say, ‘them today, us tomorrow,’ and it’s true.”

To learn more about preventing a stroke, check out this County News Center public service announcement featuring Supervisor Ron Roberts: Strike Out Stroke.