Neighbors helping neighbors is usually pretty safe.

But with nurses Deb Solem and Nate Teideman, it was a matter of life or death for their neighbors.

The North Dakota Nursing Association 2006 Nurse Hero award recipients were recognized in a ceremony at the North Dakota Heritage Center on Monday morning. Solem, of Oslo, Minn., and Teideman, of Fargo, spoke of the incidences that led to their nominations for the award.

Solem, a licensed practical nurse in Grand Forks, also is a first responder. She volunteers to wear a pager and respond to emergencies before emergency help, like ambulances or police, can arrive. She got a page when a neighbor's propane grill exploded. It burned him and his child.

She did something that day first responders do not do. She drove him to the hospital. In that moment, he was her neighbor and the man she knew from church.

"He told me, 'Either you take me, or I'm going,'" she said.

He didn't want to go in the ambulance or leave his daughter. She and another person took him and his daughter to the hospital. She managed to get out of a speeding ticket, and his family was grateful.

"As much (help) as we received from many friends and neighbors that day and beyond, it is Deb's vast nursing experience combined with knowing what is really needed right now that made her such a hero to our family that day," the man's wife wrote in a nomination letter.

But Solem didn't do it for the recognition; she did it because it's a calling.

"I serve because I want to help," she said.

It's this same calling that has Teideman needing to turn off the pager if he wants to focus on his family. He also is a first responder, in addition to being an emergency room nurse at MeritCare and teaching paramedic classes.

He keeps an eye on his neighbors. He knows one next-door neighbor is not in the best of health. When the neighbor called, he didn't know it would be because of another neighbor. The other neighbor had fallen and he quickly realized it was cardiac arrest.

He gave the man CPRand when the police came, he used their automatic external defibrillator. He helped administer medications when the paramedics had arrived.

The man made it to the hospital, but would die because of lack of oxygen to his brain.

Teideman became a nurse to help other people.

"Like Deb, I do it for the hugs and smiles," he said. "I like being there at a person's time of need."

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@;bismarcktribune.com.)