When U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Aaron Hutchins was rushed to the hospital with a life-threatening blood clot, his daughter, Mackenzie Hutchins, felt her world tilt. Despite being in peak physical condition, a routine ACL tear had spiraled into a saddle pulmonary embolism—a medical term Mackenzie didn’t understand and a diagnosis that left her feeling paralyzed by fear.

That moment of helplessness, however, became her catalyst. Rather than letting the confusion consume her, she transformed her fear into a fierce determination to support other families navigating the same terrifying medical uncertainty.

Following his knee injury, Chief Warrant Officer Hutchins was prescribed blood thinners and told to rest. He was unable to work his job as a U.S. Army helicopter maintenance test pilot until he recovered, but he seemed to be in a good condition. Then, things took a dangerous turn.

Aaron Hutchins felt shortness of breath, and had an elevated blood pressure. He called his U.S. Army flight surgeon, Matthew Esposito, who told him to come to the base at Hunter Army Airfield as quickly as possible to be seen by the doctor on call. After being checked in, it was quickly determined that he had to be rushed to the emergency room at Memorial Health University Medical Center, an HCA Healthcare facility, for emergency surgery. Mackenzie Hutchins’ parents got in touch with her on their drive over to the hospital.

“All I remember is getting a call, because I’m babysitting at the time, being like, ‘hey, we’re going to the emergency room, something is wrong with Dad,’ and I’m freaking out, because I can’t just leave,” Hutchins said.

Thankfully for the Hutchins family, the emergency surgery was a success, and they caught the blood clot just in time.

“My flight surgeon showed me pictures — it was the largest blood clot he had ever seen in someone who was still alive,” Aaron Hutchins said. “My heart had been running a marathon for 24 hours.”

For Mackenzie, it opened her eyes to the possibilities of what she could do one day, and how she could help other people.

“While it was happening, I kept thinking: what do these words mean? What is a pulmonary embolism?,” Hutchins said. “That fear made me want to become a nurse so I could understand and help others going through the same thing.”

Like a lot of young people after graduating high school, Hutchins wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her career.

As the daughter of a U.S. Army helicopter maintenance test pilot, she moved a lot as a child, from Fort Riley in Kansas, Fort Drum in upstate New York, and Hunter Army Airfield in Northeast Georgia. After graduating high school in Georgia, she considered early childhood education as a career, as she enjoyed the countless nights she had babysitting the children of her father’s Army colleagues.

It didn’t take long before she realized education wasn’t for her. But her mom, Brandy Hutchins, kept encouraging Mackenzie to give a career in healthcare a try, especially after her experience in the days after her father’s emergency.

“One day, I was sitting there, and I was thinking, I was like, well, I don’t think this is for me,” Hutchins said. “And I was talking to my mom about it, and I was like, I think I want to do something else. In the back of my head, I was like ‘maybe I should look into nursing,’ or even just anywhere in the healthcare field. She reminded me once again, you should really consider looking into nursing, or something in that field, in that area.

“And it kind of just was like a switch, and I was like, this is a sign, she knows what I’m thinking. So I started talking to my advisor (at a local community college), and I said I want to give this a go.”

Hutchins soon received her Certified Nurse Assistant license, and then added her Patient Care Technician license, and got a job at Memorial Health, the same hospital that treated her father and saved his life. She currently works on a medical-surgical floor, and enjoys the day-to-day grind of taking care of patients across the spectrum of ailments.

When she began working as a PCT on the med‑surg floor at Memorial, everything clicked.

“Working in an actual hospital are two very different things, and it was definitely easier said than done starting to work there. What you see on TV is not what you see in a hospital at all. It is completely different. I’ve been there for about a hear now, and I absolutely love it.

Her colleagues quickly noticed her natural ability. During one medical emergency, Mackenzie stayed with a sick patient, kept them calm, cleaned them up, and called for the Medical Emergency Team (MET) without hesitation.

That’s when her team realized what she was capable of.

“She is a very competent PCT, said Critical Nurse Coordinator Cole Davis, BSN, RN, and Hutchins’ boss on the Med-Surg floor. “She knew when to alert nurses of vital signs out of range, and that’s something you look for in a nurse.”

After a while, she realized she wanted to have more responsibility, and pursue the next step in becoming a registered nurse. That’s how she found out about Galen.

“I had been hearing a lot about a nursing school that was going to give me a lot of opportunities to go to other clinical sites including the ones around here,” Hutchins said. “For instance, I heard we’re going to Augusta, Ga. to look at their burn unit, which I have never heard of any nursing school doing anything like that. And so that was really interesting to me, as well as, (Memorial Health) will give you a grant, and it’ll help you pay for school.”

Now in her second quarter of her Associate Degree in Nursing program at Galen’s Savannah campus, Hutchins is making great progress and is ready to come on campus in time for the next term.

“I’m exceptionally proud of her because she’s following her own path, and she’s deciding what makes her happy,” Aaron Hutchins said. “You can see it in the work that she does, because when you’re going on a path you think you’re going to like and you’re struggling with it, you don’t perform at the level you need. But when you’re doing something you enjoy and going down a path that excites you, you don’t have to work very hard and you can excel. It’s easy to see that she enjoys it.”

In the future, Hutchins said she wants to experience as many clinical opportunities as she can while a Galen student to gain experience, and sees her role as an RN as just the next step on the ladder of her career. She mentioned interest in becoming a nurse anesthetist, so she can play a role in surgeries, or potentially even going to medical school to become a surgeon one day.

“That has been something I’ve considered, which people are like, ‘oh my gosh, what are you talking about?’,” Hutchens said. “I’m like, ‘why not?’ There’s nothing stopping me.”

Whether you’re starting fresh or advancing your healthcare career, Galen has a pathway designed for you. Discover your degree options. Explore Galen’s three pre-licensure degree programs, our VN/PN, ADN, and BSN, as well as our Online BSN and Online graduate degree programs.