Death Before Dishonor

[DrWorkNeverDone]

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That is what his tatoo said, not just him, but Kevin, He now has the special memory in my mind as being the first person I witnessed die before me...Today was my third day in the ER and it had been slow all morning....A page came in from EMS about a 50 yr old man who had been found unconcious and thought to be down for at least 40 min. Everything moved so quickly...CPR was being done as they rolled him in the room, someone took over the compressions....It looked like he was going to break him....All sort of things were yelled out and then bame!!! Time of death 1144....Everyone cleared like nothing had happened. I guess I'm in a stage of shock...nnot because Im sad, or even mad, everyone has there time. I just didnt realize it could go that quick. I put the toe tag on him...I wanted to tell you gys not only for support but to also warn those that havnt been through this,,I did autopsy and seen people thrown in the air by cars,,,nothing prepares you for this though.....the main thing that I have done is just breathe...Have a good week you guys

Luana

 

[dread]

He was probably dead before he arrived at your hospital. I had a freakier occurence one time. I saw a girl who was around 20 some years old in the state medical examining officer as they were doing an autopsy to determine a cause of death. It was probably drug overdose. Her parents said that she never did drugs, but she had track marks along both of her arms. I never forgot how she looked. Then, one year later, I was working in the ER when they brought in a girl that looked just like the girl who I had seen in them do the autopsy on last year. She was coding, and they ended up opening her chest to squeeze her heart manually. She ended up dying too. I sewed her chest back up so that her body would be presentable for her family. It really disturbed me for a while though, it was like she was meant to die all over again or something. 🙁

 

[DrWorkNeverDone]

I am not familiar with all the terms but when he just entered the trauma room he went vtech.....they kept doing compressions while the EMS guy told them how he had " blank" signal on his way in and the ther. drugs had been given on way......funny that you mention that cause the doctor in charge said she would not crack open his chest, that it wasnt her procedure.......man that would be sad, its just that i know everyone has probably seen a dead body, i have too...its just that I havnt seen it happen afront of me...i bet it was hard for you too thanks for responding ,,,,i feel you

 

[BioMedResearch]

As a well veteraned medic my advice/insight is that in the medical profession we can only help prevent the inevitable. Vtach is a scary situation with a low survival, especially without immediate defib; cardiac death is ocurring as well as organ failure and ultimately brain death as you approach 8 minutes from the incident.

Life is a precious thing that we need to respect although none of us can truly understand what brings on the end and what stops the end from coming.

 

[OnMyWayThere]

I was volunteering last month in the ER and all of a sudden, the "red" phone rings. I had no idea what it was and all of a sudden I hear " Code blue Code Blue"... I admit, I didn't memorize all the codes and I was like, what the heck is going on to myself. Well, they bring a patient out of the room to clear it up for the "code blue". I realize Code Blue is Cardiac.

They roll in a 5 month old girl. Everyone rushed in the room and within 7 minutes, they pronounced her dead.

Meanwhile, her mom is sitting there and not even that upset. They asked her what had happened and she said the baby stopped breathing about 20 minutes before the EMT got to her house. Well, the doctor concluded the baby was dead for over 12 hours.

Cops came, arrested the young mother and I left because I felt throwing up. I'm glad I was there though to see all of this.

 

[DrWorkNeverDone]

OnMyWayThere, you know when I first started writing this post I was going to tell you how mad I would be at the mother...then I thought,,,do you think she didnt want to let go of her baby? That for a that period of time she went crazy? That those 20 minutes to her were actually 12 hrs??? man how crazy is that! Yeah I would probably have to go too,,,there was a baby in our peds er that was going through seizures....sad .....

I respect humans though, alot, enough that I was making sure everything was perfect, including that vomit was all wiped up so that he would look as presentable as possible to his family....Even when I was doing my autopsys I was so careful not to mess anything up.....this just enhanced my respect even more....

Its just that,,,,,I expected it to be like all the other patients i have seen go in and out of that room, go in get an external ekg and then be put in the hall way for intubation.....not this time though....it was different.....im okay with it 🙂 just amazed, I learned so much today