I wanted to
write about Nurse No (a floor nurse) who trapped a patient in a bathroom
because she misread a chart and thought it said tuberculosis instead of a
simple pneumonia. It’s a funny story. Instead since school has started and I
lack time to properly write a longish story I’ll write about the 2 minute call
for a T.O.D.
A young male
is the victim of a single small caliber (turned out to be a .25 caliber) GSW to
the chest, it appears to exit around the t-spine area. The patient comes in via ambulance; a trauma
surgeon is present in the trauma bay. The
trauma surgeon is watching the entire scene from the door. He says the usual
things “Put him on the monitor and let’s get him stripped to see if he’s got
another wound someplace.” The trauma doc says “Look if I’m going crack his
chest we got to know some things real fast.” Both happen real quick, yup only the two
wounds (Apparently the entrance and exit wounds). He asks the paramedics how long
the transport was and when the call dropped. He looks at the patient and looks
at the clock, then the monitor, then asks his team if anyone fees a pulse.
No pulse.
He says “He’s
dead.” The trauma surgeon and his team leaves without a word.
Time of
death was exactly two minutes from when the patient rolled into the trauma bay.
It does
happen that quickly. No shit.
I'll try now to put in an entry a month since school has started back so check back in a few weeks. The Crusty ER Tech has to get his degree so he can get the hell out of the ER.
