A patient in the hospital for whatever reason stopped breathing and pumping his own blood. Doctors rushed in along with nurses, I stood outside the room with my three colleagues. I hear different orders being shouted through the air, "Get the crash cart!" "You start compressions!" "I'll get the kit" "Push another atropine!" "Stop! Does he have a pulse?" "Rotate on compressions" "We have a pulse!" "Ok, he's stable" "I lost the pulse!" "Quick, start compressions again!" and on and on.
At one point, one of the residents turns to me, points, and beckons. As I near him, he tells me to leave my white coat outside the room. I hurriedly rush in sans white coat and grab the gloves he gives me.
"You're going to relieve the guy giving compressions."
My mind's jaw drops. My physical body continues as directed to the side of the room where the folks giving compressions are standing and doing their job. As I stand behind the fellow whose shoulders are heaving as he pushes heavily onto the old gentleman's sternum, someone tells him to pause to check pulses. They find one! Everyone relaxes (again) as the people in the room prepare to move the bed to the ICU. As the connections are dropped, they notice his pulse is gone again. Matt, my resident, turns to me and points me in. I step up, place my hands as taught and practiced on rubber dummies, and start counting while doing my job. I count ~50 compressions when the lady next to me says, "I can feel your compressions, stop so I can see if he's beating on his own." I halt. She still has a pulse. I step back after glancing at Matt as the bed is wheeled off. As I exit slowly behind the bed and its horde of people, my two colleagues come up to me and congratulate me on saving a life. I stutter like I always do when I get a compliment. Jokes continue into the night about using the story to score chicks at the bar. I'm just happy he lived. And constantly reminding myself in my mind about how oddly the feel of the elderly gentleman's chest felt just like the mannequins we practice on. The only odd part was the face staring up at me slowly turning first purple, then pink with compressions, and with a mouth slightly parted in the agony of the situation...
