He lived, she died
At 2:30pm I was in the emergency room feeling a little lost. The hallways were full, the nurses were running around, the technicians were dragging EKG carts and beds, the doctors were quietly dictating notes into their phones, and I stood in this sea of the familiar-yet-strange.
The charge nurse came up to me and shook me out of my haze with the words "There's a trauma coming in, MVC, in cardiac arrest. Do you want to see?" Before I realized what she said and could reply, she was walking away fast talking to me and I had no choice but to follow and keep up with her as best as I could.
"MVC?", I was clearly not my brightest self this afternoon.
"Motor vehicle crash. Man and woman, they're both here. She was driving. She's in [medical terms that I didn't understand but meant that her heart was not doing well at all] and they are doing chest compressions."
I followed her as she rapidly buzzed us through the big double doors leading to the trauma bays. We stopped outside trauma bay A and we peeked in through the thin strip of glass which was not opaque. There were about 15 care providers inside. The patient was overweight, female, lying naked on the bed and everyone was quietly but rapidly working to resuscitate her. I could not see her face, only her body on which I did not see any external injuries or bleeding wounds.
The charge nurse told me I could watch from outside and disappeared. I heard someone inside say "Clear" and I knew they were going to shock her. I leaned back against the wall and stopped looking. I was feeling a little woozy. After a minute I looked in again and they were making incisions on her chest. At times like these I wish I knew medicine and the names of the precedures performed and their purpose. The lady inside had been driving the car when it met with an accident. Her husband was in the other trauma room being resuscitated.
As I waited, the charge nurse came in and went into the room and came right back out. I looked at her expectantly and she simply shook her head. I knew the lady had not made it. I peeked in again and this time her body was covered with a white sheet. The room was still full of people and as someone opened the door to leave I heard the voices inside. The EMS were telling the nurses about the accident, the residents were talking about the procedures they had just performed in purely clinical terms, and the EDTs cracked a joke or two. Life went on.
Just as the door shut on trauma bay A, the door to trauma bay B opened and the husband was wheeled out. He was conscious, but hooked up to IVs and with visible wounds to his face and other exposed areas. He was wheeled into the x-ray room and that's the last I saw of him. I left the trauma bays.
But I can't stop thinking about the man and how his life had just changed. Did he know his wife lay dead in the next room as he was wheeled into x-ray? Did he know that his life had just changed drastically, painfully, and irreversibly? Was he wondering about her at that moment? Did he know that people were standing around talking and laughing even as his wife lay lifeless on the bed?
I later asked the charge nurse what happened to the man. She told me that he was taken to room 27 after x-ray and looked like he was going to be fine. They had not told him yet about her but he must have found out by now. I couldn't resist it, I walked past room 27. I wanted to see if he was ok. But the curtain was pulled and I did not see any family members in the room. I still can't stop thinking about how he will feel when he finds out.
Distancing myself emotionally from my fieldwork is much harder than I thought it would be. I am not in the medical profession and have no training with seeing pain and death and dealing with it. It takes four years of med school and much formal training and even then seasoned doctors go home and cry at night. I cried when I got home. And it didn't help much.
The charge nurse came up to me and shook me out of my haze with the words "There's a trauma coming in, MVC, in cardiac arrest. Do you want to see?" Before I realized what she said and could reply, she was walking away fast talking to me and I had no choice but to follow and keep up with her as best as I could.
"MVC?", I was clearly not my brightest self this afternoon.
"Motor vehicle crash. Man and woman, they're both here. She was driving. She's in [medical terms that I didn't understand but meant that her heart was not doing well at all] and they are doing chest compressions."
I followed her as she rapidly buzzed us through the big double doors leading to the trauma bays. We stopped outside trauma bay A and we peeked in through the thin strip of glass which was not opaque. There were about 15 care providers inside. The patient was overweight, female, lying naked on the bed and everyone was quietly but rapidly working to resuscitate her. I could not see her face, only her body on which I did not see any external injuries or bleeding wounds.
The charge nurse told me I could watch from outside and disappeared. I heard someone inside say "Clear" and I knew they were going to shock her. I leaned back against the wall and stopped looking. I was feeling a little woozy. After a minute I looked in again and they were making incisions on her chest. At times like these I wish I knew medicine and the names of the precedures performed and their purpose. The lady inside had been driving the car when it met with an accident. Her husband was in the other trauma room being resuscitated.
As I waited, the charge nurse came in and went into the room and came right back out. I looked at her expectantly and she simply shook her head. I knew the lady had not made it. I peeked in again and this time her body was covered with a white sheet. The room was still full of people and as someone opened the door to leave I heard the voices inside. The EMS were telling the nurses about the accident, the residents were talking about the procedures they had just performed in purely clinical terms, and the EDTs cracked a joke or two. Life went on.
Just as the door shut on trauma bay A, the door to trauma bay B opened and the husband was wheeled out. He was conscious, but hooked up to IVs and with visible wounds to his face and other exposed areas. He was wheeled into the x-ray room and that's the last I saw of him. I left the trauma bays.
But I can't stop thinking about the man and how his life had just changed. Did he know his wife lay dead in the next room as he was wheeled into x-ray? Did he know that his life had just changed drastically, painfully, and irreversibly? Was he wondering about her at that moment? Did he know that people were standing around talking and laughing even as his wife lay lifeless on the bed?
I later asked the charge nurse what happened to the man. She told me that he was taken to room 27 after x-ray and looked like he was going to be fine. They had not told him yet about her but he must have found out by now. I couldn't resist it, I walked past room 27. I wanted to see if he was ok. But the curtain was pulled and I did not see any family members in the room. I still can't stop thinking about how he will feel when he finds out.
Distancing myself emotionally from my fieldwork is much harder than I thought it would be. I am not in the medical profession and have no training with seeing pain and death and dealing with it. It takes four years of med school and much formal training and even then seasoned doctors go home and cry at night. I cried when I got home. And it didn't help much.
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