kaylarae

No. However, I did see a drunk guy slide off the gurney, and rip his sack open on a lever at the end of the bed. I wish I was joking. It was awful.

Well, like I had posted he was badly burned, brought to our hospital, transferred out to a burn center.

I have to be pretty vague in the story-I apologize-privacy laws...etc...

Anyway fast forward to a year later, and i'm living in Hawaii. A man with scars all over his body, comes in to the ER I worked at. I just knew it was him. I asked him how he got his burns, and he confirmed it. I teared up, and I told him that I was there the night he was brought in, and he and his wife immediately started to cry. It was pretty amazing to meet him. Small world I tell ya, small world.

6) Generally, i'd say 50% of the time. But truthfully, if someone is near death, they likely are already on a disposable pad, have a catheter in, etc. I guess it would be better to say, once they pass on, we don't go investigating down there. But, if they do, a lot of the time, you can smell it. 7) There is always more than one person in the room when CPR is given, because it is tiring, and tires you out quickly. I probably did 5-10 minutes once, but that was only because I was waiting for someone else to come in. Sometimes they die, but medicine is awesome, and sometimes they live. I've done CPR on more people who have lived than have died. 8) a fireman with 3rd degree burns over his entire body. He fell through the roof of a building into the fire, he lived, and I met him about a year later when I moved to Hawaii. Crazy story. 9) Sometimes you get 10 minutes, sometimes you get 3. Sometimes they walk through the front door, and you get NO time. 10) Too much.

A military man came in cause he was in a barfight and he needed stitches. Well, he and his wife were there, as was his CO, and then the dudes girlfriend on the side showed up...His CO said it was the 3rd time it had happened with the guy, and he cut up his military ID in front of everyone.

There are many, but only one made me question why I did the job that I was doing.

Like I had mentioned I worked as a patient support coordinator. And this night, the worst one I ever had in 5 years working there, I was doing this job.

We had a person come in who was involved in a gang related shooting. Point blank to the chest. As the trauma team was working on him the lobby began to flood with family, friends, rival gang members...(cops were there well in advance and were handling that aspect of it)

I had pulled the family into a private room as soon as they got there. I went to the back, to see how it was going, and it was not going good. He was gone, but they were doing everything in their power to get him back. Blood was everywhere, we were using every possible resource that we could. It was horrific. I'd get into detail about the room that it happened in, but I will just say that it looked like nothing short of a scene in a horror movie.

So, after seeing that, I went out to the lobby, and I was trying my hardest to put on my game face after what I had just seen, and I told the family as little as I could-because I was not going to drop that bomb on them.

Meanwhile the patients father checks in due to anxiety related chest pain...and is in a room not far from all of this happening.

The ER physician finds me, and I go with him to notify the family-and it was awful. After he left me with the family, I did all I could to not cry along with them, but I failed. Hearing a mother cry for her child, hearing them pleading, was just too much. After everything had cleared out about 4 hours later, sigh, I went into my office, and had a nervous breakdown. Social services arrived while I was crying and talked me through it-but it didn't really help. I think about this night often.