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~*~ the here and now. ~*~ the done and gone. ~*~ who am i? ~*~ find more like me ~*~
say something to me. ~*~ what they've said about me. ~*~ feel left out? ~*~ get pretty. ~*~

my first code.
2006-03-16, 12:11 a.m.

current mood: baby, lemmie sleep on it.

current song: paralyzed by the cardigans

this is where your sanity gives in
and love begins
never lose your grip
don't trip
don't fall
you'll lose it all
the sweetest way to die

it lies deep inside
you can not hide
it's the meanest fire
oh it's a strange desire
you can not lie
that's a needless fight

this is where your sanity gives in
and love begins
never lose your grip
don't trip
don't fall
you'll lose it all
the sweetest way to die

when your blood runs dry
you're paralyzed
it will eat your mind
did you hold it back
it comes to you in slow attacks
it's the meanest fire

this is where your sanity gives in
and love begins
never lose your grip
don't trip
don't fall
you'll lose it all
the sweetest way to die

i guess i'm a real emt now. i had my first code today. he was a cute little old guy, sweet as pie. when we picked him up at the ecf he just got out of the chair and jumped on the cot, cracking little old guy jokes and smiling. we took him for a cardiac check-up, nothing special.

when we got to the doctor's office, they had no room for a cot but they had a wheel chair. he jumped off the cot, went to the bathroom, and got in the chair. the nurses wheeled him back for the appointment, and cheryl told us to wait and take him back to the ecf when he was done. she'd make a note that he could go by ambulette next time. eric and i settled into chairs in the lobby. i worked on run reports.

the nurse came running out to the lobby about 20 minutes later, exclaiming that there was something wrong and he needed to go to the hospital. they wanted him to go to luke's, since we were at the ft. miami medical center; it's across the parking lot. we threw on gloves and ran back there.

and there sits the poor little guy. he was most certainly locx5 when we saw him last, and now he's at about locx3. he can't catch his breath, and he can't really speak. the doc says he thinks it's a stroke, but i don't notice any facial droop to one side. i run and get the cot, and squeeze it back there. eric and the doc scoop him up and throw him on it. the daughter is sobbing, makeup streaming down her face. she's got about as much of an idea as to what's going on as we do. i look at eric, we lift the cot, and run him out to the rig. i start taking vitals. bp is way elevated from the one i got earlier. he's tachycardic. he's now gone unresponsive, but he's breathing and has a radial pulse. eric calls luke's on the med channel and tells them we'll be there in one minute, and they start screaming about a blood sugar and other things; i guess they didn't understand where we were. so i take the fucking sugar; it's 114, normal. pupils are constricted, and equally sluggish to react. i turn up the o2 from 2L to 5, and eric screams code 3 across the parking lot. i'm scribbling vs on my glove so i have something to give the er. that's when i notice that his fingers are going cyanotic. it's too late to bag him; we're here. and he's still breathing. and i've still got a radial pulse.

he died somewhere in between the first and second set of doors to get into the er, because when we get him into ac 15 he's pulseless and apneic. nurses are screaming. we're throwing this poor guy on the bed and trying to get out of the way. i'm rattling off vs to a nurse who is furiously scribbling them on her glove. someone is intubating. someone else is doing compressions. enter the daughter.

i grab the cot and pull it the hell out of the way. he's in the hands of people way more trained than i. eric herds the daughter out to the bay doors, to try and calm her. i can't catch my breath, i'm so worked up. but at this point, i've done every thing i could have done. nurses are staring; starting at us, staring at the curtains that have been pulled shut in ac 15, staring at a sobbing middle-aged woman who doesn't understand any of this. i can't take it anymore, and i go outside and do the only thing i can do.

i get in the rig, punch things for a minute, grab my clipboard, and step outside to chain smoke as many cigarettes as possible. eric is talking to me, telling me that i did everything i could do, telling me that i did nothing wrong. his words are fuzzy and strange and don't quite make sense. lt. ronnie shows up. i'm still smoking, and at some point i've found a cup of coffee. eric is telling him what's going on, and i'm not paying attention. i'm staring at the curtain in ac 15, listening to the dampered din of people trying to save a dead man. ronnie asks me if i'm ok, and i mutter something about being a shit magnet. he laughs, and they try to cheer me up but i'm elsewhere. i fill out a run report. i walk it in, and the room is strangely dark, and eerily quiet. and all i can do is just be sad, but there are no tears coming. i let the daughter have them; it is her time to grieve, not mine. she looks at us with tired eyes and thanks us for being there, and eric consoles her but i can't even look up. i slink back to the truck and settle into the seat. i think that this man is dead, and i'm blaming myself.

we go northeast for some things. i wander around like a zombie. steve talks to me about other shit, and i nod, and i sign the paperwork. they send us on a run to findlay, and i smile at the little old lady, and wonder if she's going to die on me too.

when we get back from findlay, they send us to luke's. i don't want to go. i don't want to know if he died, because i was so sure that he did. i don't even look at the er nurses as we go up to the floor. we get our patient, and we get her in the truck, and eric says that he's going to get something to drink while i get some vitals on our patient.

eric comes back out, starts the truck, calls us transporting, and yells for me to come up and talk to him. and i'm bracing for the words.

but he lived. he didn't die. if we hadn't been there, he would have. if we hadn't thrown him in the truck and flew him into the er, he would have died. he's on a vent, and he's on the floor. he's not expected to be as well as he was that morning, but he's expected to recover. he only stopped breathing for minutes. his heart only stopped for maybe a minute before they started compressions. i still don't know what went wrong, and why he deteriorated the way that he did. maybe cva. maybe uncontrolled bleed. all i know is that he lived, and that's all i really care about. i still can't help but feel that i could have done more. i should have bagged him. i don't know. i don't see it as a save, because he did die, for a moment, and it happened in my hands.

i'm going to try and sleep. maybe it'll be better in the morning.

~*~ immediate yesterday. ~*~ divination. ~*~

~*~ entries from 2002 ~*~ entries from 2003 ~*~ entries from 2004 ~*~ entries from 2005 ~*~ entries from 2006 ~*~ entries from 2007 ~*~ entries from 2008 ~*~ entries from 2009 ~*~


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