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PARAMEDIC CHRONICLES: Female near drowning victim, age 18, breathing and pulse restored by bystanders on the beach, still unconscious on oxygen therapy on arrival in the ER

kk095

The Intensive Care Unit

(Hey there, everyone! I wanted to try something a little different and introduce a new cast of characters! All of this takes place in the same hospital and universe Dr. Lindsay and all my other recurring characters are in, so you may see them referenced here and there. This story is supposed to be an intro for these new characters, so I apologize if you're not feeling the formatting. Regardless, I hope you like these new characters!)

It was just before 7:00 in the evening, the changeover between day and night shift. The ICU quieted down from its daytime pace without going completely still— monitors beeping behind glass doors, a ventilator cycling somewhere down the row, and the lights dropped a notch from their afternoon brightness. The floor was between hands for a few minutes, waiting on the attending who’d carry it until morning.

Three of them stood at the main nurses’ station, the long, curved counter at the center of the unit where every room faced inward.

Nurse Bri Layzell had a clipboard against her hip, settled and unhurried after a full day on her feet. She stood at 5’7”, lean and lightly toned under her navy blue scrubs. Her sandy blonde hair was back in a ponytail gone a little loose over the course of the day, and her brown eyes moved over the rooms and the monitors and came back. A smartwatch on one wrist, an engagement ring on the other hand, bright-colored running shoes on her size 9 feet.

Beside her, Dr. Sloane Buxton leaned against the counter with her arms crossed. At 5’4” she was the shortest of the crew; slim build, put together in a cooler and sharper way than the nurses next to her. Her medium-brown hair, wavy and neat, was pulled half back; her hazel eyes, more green than not under the lights, held steady on the same monitors Bri was watching. Clean neutral polish on her nails, light makeup, a badge clipped at her waistband.

Nurse Megan Keenan stood a short distance back from the other two, closer to the rooms than the counter. She was tall— 6’0”, and athletic through the shoulders, compact and solid, built from years on ice skates as a former D1 hockey player, and dressed now in scrubs, with a pair of comfortable running shoes on her size 11 feet. Her brown hair was up in a plain ponytail, and her deep, bold brown eyes moved between the screens, the doors, and the two women beside her. No makeup, small hoops in each ear, short unpolished nails. She looked more tomboyish and sporty than the other two. She was newer to the floor, and it showed.

cprgirl12345

Had a little too much to drink and passed out in the bathtub

defib-the-hidden

We've Lost Her Part 5

A Long First-person female resus, male doctor, female nurse, ICU setting

defib-the-hidden

We've Lost Her Part 1

(reposted from original blog to new resus blog)

Part 1 First person resus story- Female patient, ICU, 1 Male doctor, 1 Female Nurse

fatalrhythms

"Once again, Cas went into ventricular fibrillation. She was hit with a second, stronger shock, her heart convulsing briefly in her chest. It began to beat feebly in between long stretches of asystole, necessitating more compressions. Agonal breaths continued to rattle and wheeze through her chest without drawing any air. It appeared as though the rhythm could change in their favor at any moment, but as of right now, she was still in arrest - and they were running out of time to reverse it. They had already broken protocol by working on her this long." Cas, a 27-year-old cardiophile with dark fantasies and poor self-preservation instincts, meets a fitting end until a team of paramedics fight to bring her back. tw: contains graphic depictions of CNC resulting in clinical death. read "smother me" on Ao3

kk095

Clara’s Cardioversion

Our trauma bay sat ready under the bright fluorescent white wash of its overhead lights while the rest of the ER settled into the usual sluggish rhythm of a Tuesday night around 9 P.M. Inside the trauma bay, Dr. Lindsay stood at the foot of the table in a fresh pair of gloves, yellow gown tied around her back. Dr. Sarah waited a few steps to her left near the crash cart, glasses on, arms folded across her chest. Dr. Jen the resident was at the head of the table with her eyes on the doors. Nurse Heather took the right side of the table while Nurse Nancy stood on the left, IV pole already pulled in close, a small tray of IV bags and pre-drawn syringes within reach. Nobody spoke. The dispatch call from 10 minutes earlier still sat in everyone’s mind— 19 year old female, syncopal episode at home, tachycardic on the monitor, GCS fifteen, cooperative but scared.

Before our team knew it, the double doors that came from the hallway swung open.

An EMS gurney came through fast and smooth, three women in navy uniforms moving relatively in sync with each other— one at the head pushing, one at the foot keeping pace, one walking alongside. On the padded surface of the gurney, sitting upright with her knees bent slightly and both hands flat against her waist, was the patient. The young lady was barefoot. Her chest rose and fell quickly. Her dark brown eyes were wide open and tracking every little thing, and they found Lindsay’s face the moment the gurney crossed into the bay and locked there for a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

the-medbay

Complications

tw: Cardiac arrest, CPR, defibrillation/AED use, resuscitation, oxygen masks, anaesthetic masks, intubation, ventilation/BVM use, surgery, anaesthesia, ICU scenes, pacing, medical deterioration, emergency alarms, invasive procedures, cannulas/IV lines, hospital restraint/control themes, loss of bodily autonomy, unconsciousness, respiratory distress, choking/breathing difficulty, blood/clinical injury detail, near-death, patient vulnerability, partner distress, sexualised medical themes, medfet/resusfet content, morally conflicted arousal

Lena Markham came in before nine and still believed she would be home by tea.

She had packed lightly. Phone charger. Lip balm. A cardigan. Clean socks. A paperback she had bought at the station and would not open. She had refused Theo's suggestion that they bring a proper overnight bag because the letter said day case and because the procedure had been described to her in the small language of reassurance: keyhole, benign, routine, short anaesthetic, recovery criteria.

She was twenty-four, with copper hair pinned messily on top of her head and loose curls already falling down around her face. The hospital gown was pale blue with a small printed pattern. It sat badly on her shoulders and slipped whenever she sat up. An ECG sticker had been placed under her left collarbone. Another sat lower, half hidden beneath the gown. A cannula lay under a clear dressing on the back of her left hand. The pulse oximeter clipped to her right index finger showed red through the nail.

Theo sat beside her in a dark hoodie and jeans, too close to the bed rail, one knee bouncing. He had been trying not to stare at the equipment and had failed for nearly an hour.

"You keep looking at the wire," Lena said.

"Which wire?"

"There are four, so that wasn't a good answer."

He looked at her face instead. She smiled, but the smile was thinner than the ones she used outside hospital. He had known her for three years. He knew the version she put on when she wanted to make other people less worried.

"The finger thing," he said.

She lifted the hand with the oximeter and watched the red light glow through her nail bed. "It's weird, isn't it? It feels like a tiny washing peg."

"It makes you look official."

"Officially ill?"

"Officially admitted."

She made a face at him. "I hate that."

A nurse came in and checked Lena's wristband. Name, date of birth, procedure, allergies, fasting, consent. Lena answered everything in the same bright voice. The nurse checked the cannula, connected a small bag of fluid, and told her the theatre team would come soon. The drip chamber clicked. Drip. Pause. Drip.

Theo watched the fluid go into the line. The nurse glanced at him once, and he tried to arrange his face into something normal.

Lena noticed. She always noticed.

"Are you going to pass out before I do?"

"I don't think that would be well received."

"No. They'd make you wait in chairs."

"Rough."

"Plastic chairs. No sympathy."

She was joking, but the cannula hand had gone still on top of the sheet. Her other hand kept touching the gown near the ECG sticker, not pulling at it, only checking that it was there. Theo reached over the rail. She gave him the hand with no cannula.

The theatre porter arrived with two staff in blue. The checks began again. Name. Date of birth. Procedure. Allergies. Fasting. Lena answered with less humour each time. The repetition worked on her. It reduced her to matched information and skin prepared for access.

Theo stood up because the bed brakes came off and the sound made the moment real.

Click.

Lena looked up at him. She had freckles across her nose and cheeks, and the gown made her shoulders look bare and cold.

"Don't look like that," she said.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm being posted somewhere."

He leaned down. The staff waited with the politeness of people who had seen this goodbye many times. Theo kissed her forehead. Her skin was warm. He could smell hospital soap and her shampoo under it.

"I'll be here," he said.

"You'd better be. I need you to witness my bravery."

"Fully documented."

The bed moved. Lena lifted her cannulated hand a little, not enough to pull the line, just enough for a wave. The pulse ox wire looped over her finger. She smiled once more before the double doors closed.

* * *

The anaesthetic room had a narrow trolley, white ceiling panels, a wall of outlets, and too much light. Lena was moved from the bed to the theatre trolley with three staff helping. She tried to assist and was told not to. The gown was adjusted. Her blanket was straightened. Her arms were placed where the staff wanted them.

The anaesthetist introduced herself as Dr Senn. The anaesthetic assistant was called Paige. Lena forgot both names almost immediately because Paige was already opening packets and Dr Senn was already checking the monitor.

The cuff wrapped around Lena's arm and tightened.

Whrrr. Squeeze. Release.

ECG leads were clipped on. The pulse oximeter was moved to another finger. A clear line was connected to the cannula. Dr Senn listened to her chest under the gown and asked about asthma, reflux, loose teeth, previous anaesthetics, allergies, last fluids. Lena answered. Her voice came out smaller in that room.

"I'm going to give you oxygen first," Dr Senn said. "Just through a mask. Nice steady breaths. Then medicine through the cannula. The first one may make you feel light-headed. The second can sting a bit. You won't be aware of the tube after you're asleep."

Lena looked at the anaesthetic machine. A clear breathing mask sat beside it, attached to corrugated tubing. It looked larger than she expected. The blue rim had a soft inflated edge.

"The tube after?"

"After you're asleep. You won't feel it."

"Okay."

Paige lifted the mask. The oxygen flow started with a dry hiss.

Shhhhh.

The mask came down over Lena's face.

It covered her nose and mouth completely. Paige held it in place with one hand, thumb and forefinger braced around the plastic, the other fingers along Lena's jaw. The inflated rim pressed into the soft skin beside her nose and under her lower lip. It smelled of clean rubber and cold gas. Her first breath through it was too quick.

Paige did not let the seal loosen when Lena tried to speak. The mask moved with her lips and flattened the words before they left her. A little condensation bloomed inside the clear plastic and vanished into the oxygen flow. Lena could see the lower half of her own face in it, distorted by the curve: mouth parted, nose pressed lightly upward, breath caught and measured by someone else's hand.

She exhaled breathily into the mask. The sound stayed close to her face. It was not a sigh she would have made in front of Theo, not voluntarily. The room was full of blue clothing and covered hair and gloved fingers, and the mask made her the one unmasked thing being covered. Paige's grip held her jaw up into place with a practised firmness that did not ask whether Lena liked being held still.

"Slow down for me," Dr Senn said.

Lena nodded under the mask.

She inhaled. The mask cleared. She exhaled breathily into the mask, and the inside fogged near her mouth. The fog thinned when the oxygen flow washed across it. She inhaled again, slower. Her chest rose under the ECG leads and the loose gown. The mask made each breath feel supervised.

"Good," Paige said. "Keep doing that."

Lena's eyes shifted to the side. She could see the syringes. Clear. White. Blue cap. Black writing on labels. She tried to lift her hand, but Paige caught it gently and placed it back on the trolley.

"Leave that there."

"Sorry," Lena said into the mask.

The word came out soft and flattened. The mask moved against her mouth with the shape of it. Paige kept the seal.

"No need to be sorry."

The first drug went in. Cool pressure rose along Lena's wrist into her forearm. The second followed. That one burned.

"Ow."

"I know. Nearly through."

The mask stayed pressed down. Lena breathed because there was nothing else to do. The oxygen hiss filled the space between instructions. Her eyelids became heavy. She tried to look at Dr Senn and found that the face had shifted slightly too far away.

"You're doing well, Lena."

She breathed out again. The mask fogged in a small oval. She wanted Theo to see that she had done it properly. She wanted to tell him that the mask smelled strange and that the second drug had hurt and that she had not cried. She wanted the thought to form into words, but the words did not finish.

Her eyes slipped out of focus.

"Lena?"

No answer.

Paige lifted the mask long enough for Dr Senn to open her jaw. A laryngoscope went in. The endotracheal tube passed between the vocal cords. The cuff inflated. The tube connected to the circuit. The ventilator gave the first controlled breath.

Ssshhk.

Her chest rose.

Ssshhk.

It rose again.

Tape crossed her cheeks. Her eyelids were closed and taped with two narrow strips. Her hair was tucked into a blue cap. A bite block was placed. Her gown was arranged for theatre. The private, frightened part of her had gone from the room. The body left on the trolley was warm, monitored, ventilated, and ready.

The theatre was already prepared. The lights were centred above the table. A warming blanket covered her upper body until the final positioning. Her arms were put out on boards and secured lightly. The gown disappeared, replaced by drapes, ECG leads, a blood pressure cuff, a pulse oximeter, the taped tube at her mouth, and the repeated lift of her chest as the ventilator delivered the set volume.

Ssshhk.

Chest rise.

Ssshhk.

Chest rise.

Everyone else wore masks. Blue masks, green masks, visors, caps. The surgeon's voice came through cloth. The scrub nurse counted instruments. Paige checked the tube holder again, then checked the capnography trace, then wiped a thread of moisture from the corner of Lena's mouth with gauze so it would not soak the tape. There was nothing tender about it. There was nothing cruel about it either. It was simply what had to be done to a sedated patient before the first incision.

When the first incision began, Lena gave no sign. The anaesthetic gases and infusions held her under. Her face, half-covered by tape and tube, remained slack. The ventilator worked through the tube in her throat while the operation began under the drapes.

* * *

Theo waited in the relatives' area with his phone in his hand and did not use it.

The first hour passed badly. He bought coffee and did not drink it. He watched other people receive updates. He walked to the vending machine and back. He sat near the door because he wanted to be found quickly when someone came for him.

At eleven thirty, a nurse told him the operation was taking a little longer than planned but that this happened sometimes.

At twelve ten, another nurse told him there had been some bleeding, that the surgeons were dealing with it, and that someone would come to speak to him properly.

At twelve twenty-five, a doctor came out still wearing theatre blues and a cap. She did not sit down. Theo stood before she reached him.

"She's alive," the doctor said first.

He did not know until then that he had needed that word.

"What happened?"

"There was bleeding during the procedure. It was more significant than expected. We converted to an open operation to control it. She's stable enough at the moment, but she's very unwell. She will go to intensive care after theatre. She's still asleep and ventilated."

"Ventilated means..."

"A breathing tube. A machine is breathing for her."

He nodded because nodding was easier than making sense of it.

"Can I see her?"

"Not yet. They'll finish in theatre first. Then ICU will take over. Someone will bring you down."

The doctor said more. Transfusion. Pressure. Observation. Critical care. Theo heard the words and kept only the shape of them. Lena had gone in for keyhole surgery. Lena had waved with a cannula on her hand. Lena had been put under with a mask. Now a machine was breathing for her and they would not let him see her yet.

In theatre, the ordinary case had already ended.

The first bleed came from a vessel that should not have torn. The second came while they were controlling the first. The laparoscopic field filled, cleared, filled again. The surgeon asked for suction. Then another suction. The anaesthetist said the pressure was falling. The oxygen saturation dipped and came back. The heart rate climbed.

Dr Senn stayed at Lena's head. She did not raise her voice. She opened the anaesthetic chart with one gloved hand, adjusted the ventilator with the other, and watched the waveform. The tube remained taped at twenty-one centimetres. Condensation collected in the clear elbow of the circuit. Each mechanical breath pushed Lena's chest up beneath the upper drape and let it settle again.

"Pressure sixty-eight," Paige said.

"Phenylephrine in. Call for blood."

The theatre runner left. The suction sound thickened. Shlurrrp. Shlurrrp. The surgeon asked for a pack. Then another. A drape was lifted, repositioned, taped down harder. Lena's skin looked paler in the square of exposed field. None of the staff looked at her face except the anaesthetic team, and the face gave them very little back: taped eyes, taped tube, parted lips around plastic, jaw held by the positioner and the tube tie.

"Open," the surgeon said.

Blue drapes shifted. Instruments changed. The small operation became a larger one with more people at the table. The anaesthetic machine delivered breath after breath through the tube while the team worked around a body that could not object.

Ssshhk.

Chest rise.

Ssshhk.

Chest rise.

Blood products arrived in a red carrier. The line in Lena's hand was no longer enough. A second cannula was placed in her arm. Then an arterial line. Her gown had been removed earlier and replaced by drapes, warming blanket, leads, and access. The blood pressure readings went from cuff numbers to a continuous arterial trace. Her temperature fell. Her skin became pale beneath the theatre lights. The taped eyes did not move.

When the bleeding was controlled, the case did not become safe. The pressure needed drugs to stay acceptable. Her blood gas worsened. The kidneys showed strain. Her clotting numbers moved in the wrong direction. The operation closed with drains, dressings, lines, and a plan for ICU.

The transfer to intensive care happened without Theo. He saw only the result.

* * *

A nurse came for him at two fifteen.

"Before you go in," she said, "I need you to put these on."

She handed him a surgical mask and a pair of gloves. He looked at them like they were instructions from a different kind of life.

"Mask over your nose and mouth. Gloves on. Do not touch any lines or tubes. If you feel faint, tell us and sit down."

He put his mask on when he was ordered to. The elastic caught in his hair. The paper moved against his lips when he breathed. The nurse watched until he pinched the strip over his nose. Then he pulled the gloves on. They snapped at the wrists. His hands looked wrong in blue nitrile, larger and clumsier than usual.

"Hands away from your face once the gloves are on," the nurse said.

Theo nodded and immediately wanted to touch the mask because she had told him not to. His breath warmed the paper. He could smell the inside of it. He could hear himself through it, close and damp, as if the mask had narrowed the room to his own mouth and Lena behind the door.

The nurse opened the ICU room door.

Lena lay in the centre of the bed with equipment on both sides and above her head. The ventilator tubing came from the machine to her mouth, where the tube was held by white tape and a plastic holder. A thin line disappeared into her neck beneath a clear dressing. Another line ran from her wrist. ECG stickers crossed her upper chest. Defib pads sat ready on the skin below the gown. The hospital gown had been pulled low and loose around the equipment. A dressing covered her abdomen under the blanket. Drains came out beneath the sheets. Pumps stood on one side with several lines feeding into her.

Her hair, which had been pinned up that morning, had been flattened under a cap and then released. Copper strands stuck to her forehead and temples. Her eyes were closed. The tube pulled the shape of her mouth downward. Every breath came from the ventilator.

A clear oxygen mask lay discarded in a kidney dish near the head of the bed, the one they had used during transfer when they briefly disconnected and hand-ventilated before fixing the circuit again. It still had moisture inside it. Theo saw it before he looked properly at Lena. He wished he had not. The thought of her face under that mask, then under the anaesthetic mask, then opened by the tube, all in one day, moved through him before he could stop it.

Pshh. Click.

Chest rise.

Pshh. Click.

Chest rise.

Theo stopped at the foot of the bed.

The nurse let him stand there for a moment. Then she said, "You can come closer."

He moved to the side. Lena's hand lay on top of the sheet, swollen slightly from fluid, cannula dressing still in place from the ward but no longer the main line. The pulse oximeter clipped to her finger blinked. A blood pressure number changed on the monitor.

"She is very sedated," the nurse said. "The tube is helping her breathe. We are supporting her blood pressure. She has had a major bleed. The surgeons have controlled it, but her body has taken a serious hit."

Theo nodded. The mask moved with his breath. He wanted to ask whether she could hear him and did not want to hear either answer.

"Can I touch her?"

"Her hand only. Gently."

He took the gloved fingers in his. The glove made the touch both safer and worse. He could feel heat through it, not texture.

"Len," he said.

The ventilator gave her another breath.

Pshh.

Her chest lifted. It fell.

"I'm here."

No response.

He stayed for twenty minutes. He watched the ventilator. He watched the condensation move through the tubing. He watched one nurse suction the tube when secretions collected. The suction catheter slid into the airway with a soft plastic resistance. The machine alarms sounded while the nurse disconnected and reconnected.

Bip-bip-bip.

The nurse spoke to Lena as she worked. "Just suction, Lena. Nearly done."

Lena's eyelids did not move. Her body reacted anyway, shoulders tightening, heart rate rising on the screen. The catheter came out. The ventilator was reconnected. Breath returned in measured cycles.

Theo put his gloved hands over his face. The mask pressed into his nose. He stood like that until the nurse touched his elbow and told him to sit.

* * *

The first arrest happened at half past four.

It did not arrive as a single dramatic moment. A nurse increased one infusion. Another came in to check the drains. The arterial pressure drifted lower. The heart rate rose, then became irregular. A doctor was called. Blood was ordered. Calcium was given. The ventilator settings were adjusted because Lena's gases had worsened again.

Theo had been told to wait outside while they changed lines and repositioned her. He was in the corridor when the emergency tone went off.

A flat, repeated alarm came from the room. Staff moved before he understood. Two nurses went in. Then a doctor. Then another. The door did not close fully. Through the gap Theo saw Lena's bed flatten, the sheet thrown down, a nurse climb onto a step beside the mattress.

"No pulse. Start compressions."

The words reached him clearly.

The nurse's hands locked in the centre of Lena's chest, between the defib pads and above the loose gown. She pushed hard. Lena's chest compressed beneath her hands. The ventilator was disconnected and a bag attached to the tube. Another nurse squeezed the bag and watched Lena's chest rise through the open gown.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Huff.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Huff.

Theo stepped backward until his shoulders hit the wall.

A member of staff moved in front of him. "You need to go to the waiting area."

"No."

"You can't stay here."

"I can be quiet."

"You can't stay here."

She took him by the arm. He let himself be moved because his legs were working without him. The waiting area was too close. The alarms still reached it. The CPR rhythm did too, not as sound from the room but as knowledge. He knew what those hands were doing to her chest. He had seen enough before the door closed.

He went into the bathroom because there was nowhere else to put his body.

The bathroom had a sink, a mirror, a locked cubicle, and a bin with a yellow lid. The surgical mask was still on his face. The gloves were still on his hands. He stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself with red eyes, blue gloves, paper mask, hoodie under a disposable plastic apron someone had put on him before the room.

The alarm continued through the wall, duller now.

His girlfriend was dying in the room next door. His body did something he hated. Fear and the sight of her under the tube and the compressions and the bagged breaths had gone into the wrong part of him. It had happened earlier too, in flashes he had pushed away: the mask on her face in pre-op, the gloved hand holding her jaw, the tube taped to her mouth, the nurse telling him not to touch the lines. He had wanted to be clean of it. He was not clean of it.

He locked himself in the cubicle.

He masturbated quickly and silently, still masked, still half in the disposable apron, the blue gloves shaking so badly he hated the sight of them. The alarm continued beyond the wall. He knew Lena was receiving compressions. He knew someone was squeezing air through the tube in her throat. He knew she had not consented to being used inside his head, and he did not pretend that the bathroom made him separate from what was happening to her.

He came with his forehead against the cubicle door and one hand over the mask to keep himself quiet. The paper stuck to his mouth where his breathing had made it damp. For a few seconds afterward he stayed there, nauseated, ashamed, and still hard enough in the mind that the shame did not clean him.

When he came out, he washed his hands twice even though the gloves had been on. He threw the gloves away. He put new ones on from the box outside the ICU doors because the nurse told him to when she came for him.

"She has a pulse," the nurse said.

Theo nodded once.

"She is not stable. But she has a pulse."

He nodded again.

He followed her back.

Lena looked worse after being brought back. The tube was still taped in place, but the tape had been reinforced. The gown had been opened more. There were fresh marks on her sternum where compressions had been done. Her skin was damp. A new bag of blood was running. The BVM lay on a trolley near the ventilator, its maskless connector still attached to the tube circuit. The defib pads remained on her chest.

Theo stood beside her and felt nothing for several seconds. Then he felt everything at once and had to grip the rail to stay upright.

"Can I talk to her?"

"Yes."

He leaned close enough that his mask almost touched the ventilator tubing.

"You came back," he said.

The ventilator answered for her.

Pshh. Click.

* * *

That night, she arrested twice more.

The second time was electrical. Her rhythm widened, lost shape, recovered for three beats, then fell into ventricular tachycardia. Staff were already in the room. Theo was not. He had been moved back when the doctors began to place another line.

He saw the shock through the glass.

"Clear."

Lena's body jumped against the bed. The monitor showed a line of interference, then a rhythm too fast to trust.

"Again."

"Clear."

The second shock made her shoulders lift. Her head turned slightly against the pillow. The tube stayed fixed. The ventilator tubing moved and was caught by a nurse before it pulled.

No pulse after the second shock. Compressions began. The doctor ordered adrenaline. The bag returned to the tube. The rhythm was checked after two minutes. Another shock. Compressions again.

Theo stayed outside this time. He did not go to the bathroom. He pressed both hands to the glass, then took them off because his fingerprints looked obscene on the barrier.

The third arrest came just before dawn, after a period that everyone called stable because the numbers had stopped falling. Her blood pressure dropped first. The ventilator alarmed because her chest compliance changed. The drains filled more than expected. Her heart slowed. Bradycardia. Then profound bradycardia. Then no useful pulse.

The team moved faster than before because everything was already attached.

Compressions. Bag. Drugs. Blood. Ultrasound.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

Huff.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

Huff.

Theo sat in a chair outside the door with a mask on his face and gloves on his hands. He kept them in his lap. The gloves creased each time he clenched his fingers.

At six twelve, Lena came back again.

The consultant said the words carefully. Return of spontaneous circulation. Ongoing bleeding controlled for now. Severe physiological insult. High risk of further arrest. Need for continued ventilation. Possible kidney failure. Possible brain injury. Possible sepsis. The list did not end. It only paused.

Theo listened and nodded. He had learned to nod in ICU.

* * *

On the second day, they tried to reduce the sedation and found out what the tube meant to Lena when she was awake enough to know about it.

Her eyelids opened under swollen lids. Her eyes moved without focus at first. Then they fixed on the ceiling, then on the nurse, then on Theo. For one second Theo saw recognition. Then panic.

Her hand moved toward her face.

The nurse caught it. "Lena. Don't pull. You have a breathing tube."

Lena tried to breathe over the ventilator. The machine alarmed.

Bip-bip-bip.

Her shoulders lifted. Her fingers curled. The tube pulled at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes went wide, wet and furious. She tried to speak and made no sound except the pressure of air around the tube.

"Lena," Theo said. "You're in ICU. You're okay."

It was the wrong thing to say. She was not okay, and some part of her understood the lie even through sedation. Her body fought the ventilator. The alarm continued. Two nurses moved in. One held her hands. One suctioned the tube. Another drug went into the line.

"She needs more sedation," the nurse said.

Theo stepped back. He had been told to wear gloves again, and the mask had been replaced by a fresh one. He felt each breath against the paper. He watched a nurse put a hand on Lena's forehead while the medication took her down.

"Don't fight," the nurse said, not unkindly. "Let it breathe for you."

Lena's eyelids lowered. The ventilator regained its rhythm.

Pshh. Click.

Theo hated the relief he felt when she stopped resisting.

The day continued with procedures. They changed dressings. They checked drains. They took blood from the arterial line. They rolled her to check her back. They cleaned her mouth around the tube. They changed the tape holding it. During the retaping, one nurse held the tube firmly at the teeth while another removed the old adhesive from Lena's cheeks. Theo watched because he had not learned how not to.

The tube looked more intrusive when the tape was off. It entered her mouth at an angle and disappeared between her lips. The nurse's gloved fingers held it in place with calm pressure. Lena's mouth stayed slack around it. A bite block kept her from closing down. New tape crossed her skin. The tube was secured again. The number at her teeth was checked out loud.

"Twenty-one."

"Twenty-one at the teeth."

Theo looked away then. Too late.

* * *

By the fourth day, the breathing tube had damaged her throat enough that the consultants began to talk about a tracheostomy.

Theo signed nothing. He was not next of kin on paper. Lena's older sister signed after the consultant explained it in a side room, then left because she could not sit with the ventilator sounds. Theo stayed. No parents came. Lena had asked for that before surgery. She had expected embarrassment, not critical illness. The request still stood.

The tracheostomy was done in theatre. Theo saw her before and after.

Before they took her, they bagged her briefly at the bedside while the ICU ventilator tubing was changed for the portable circuit. The mask did not go over her face that time. The green bag connected to the tube at her mouth. A nurse squeezed. Huff. Lena's chest rose. The portable monitor was clipped on, the pumps gathered, the bed rails lifted. Theo stood in the doorway wearing a mask and gloves and watched the tube at her lips become the one thing every hand protected.

In theatre, the staff turned her head slightly and cleaned her neck. The mouth tube stayed in until the neck tube was placed. For a few minutes she had both: the old airway entering through her mouth, the new opening being prepared below, the ventilator waiting to be transferred from one route to the other. The operation was small compared with the first one. It still changed her more.

Before, she was still intubated through the mouth, sedated, taped, swollen, pale. After, the tube was gone from her mouth and a smaller plastic tube came out of a dressing at the base of her throat. The ventilator connected there now. Her lips were free but dry. The corners of her mouth were cracked where the tube had sat. Tape marks remained on both cheeks.

The tracheostomy should have looked like an improvement. In some ways it did. Her face was less distorted. But the new tube in her neck was worse because it was lower, more permanent, and more exposed. It sat above the chest leads and defib pad marks. A white collar held it in place. Clear tubing ran from it to the ventilator. A small line of blood marked the dressing at one edge.

Theo stood at the side of the bed. He wore a mask, gloves, and a yellow apron because the nurse had told him to. He put them on without asking now. Mask first. Apron. Gloves. He did it in the doorway while looking at Lena, and then hated himself for noticing how familiar the sequence had become.

The nurse suctioned the tracheostomy shortly after he arrived.

"This may make her cough," she said.

Lena was more awake that day. Not fully. Enough to know the suction was coming. Her eyes shifted to the nurse's hand. The catheter went into the trach. Lena's whole body tightened. Her shoulders lifted. Her mouth opened soundlessly. The suction made its wet mechanical noise.

Krrrk.

Theo's stomach dropped. His hands rose to his face before he stopped them. The gloves touched the mask. He felt the shape of his own breath against the paper and lowered his hands quickly.

Lena's eyes found him after the catheter came out.

He tried to smile. It was a poor attempt. She blinked once, slowly.

The nurse reconnected the tubing. The ventilator gave another breath through the trach.

Pshh.

The chest rose.

Pshh.

The chest rose again.

* * *

On the fifth night, Lena stopped tolerating the ventilator.

It began with agitation. Her heart rate rose. Her oxygen saturation dropped into the high eighties. She turned her head from side to side against the pillow, trying to find a way out of the tube that was not in her mouth anymore. The ventilator alarmed. The nurse increased oxygen. A doctor came. Theo was asked to step out.

"Just while we settle her."

He stood outside the door. He could see enough through the glass to know she was not settled.

A mask was placed over his own face by a nurse from infection control before she let him remain in the corridor.

"Properly over the nose," she said.

He fixed it. "Sorry."

"And gloves if you go back in."

He nodded.

Inside, Lena's hands were held down while the staff adjusted sedation and checked the tracheostomy. Her mouth was open as if she were trying to breathe through it, but the breaths came through the tube in her neck. The monitor showed her heart rate at one-thirty. The saturation hovered at eighty-eight, then eighty-six, then ninety-one when the nurse bagged her manually through the trach.

The green bag compressed.

Huff.

Lena's chest rose.

Huff.

It rose again.

Theo watched the bagging with the same sick pull he had felt before. It was not the first time now. That made it worse. Fear had a route through him. So did the other thing. He stood with his hands at his sides and let his nails bite into his palms through the gloves.

The crisis eased after twenty minutes. Sedation. Suction. Manual ventilation. More oxygen. Adjusted settings. Her saturation came back to ninety-four. The nurse changed the damp dressing around the trach. The doctor wrote in the notes.

When Theo came back in, Lena was asleep again. The ventilator tubing had been rearranged. A humidification chamber had been connected. The trach collar looked clean. Her skin was flushed from fever and effort.

He sat and watched until morning.

* * *

The worst arrest happened on day seven.

Lena had been off full ventilation for two hours, supported through the tracheostomy with humidified oxygen and pressure support. The staff called it a trial. Theo did not like the word. Trial sounded like something someone could fail.

She was more awake than she had been. Not strong. Not able to speak properly because of the trach. But awake. Her hair had been brushed by a nurse and tied loosely. Her eyes followed Theo when he moved. She had written two words on a pad with a shaking hand.

water

then

scared

He had held the board and told her he knew. He did not tell her he was scared too. That would have given her something else to carry.

The humidified mask over the trach made a constant soft flow sound. It sat at her neck, not her face, but a simple oxygen mask had also been placed loosely near her mouth earlier when her saturations dipped and the nurse wanted extra flow during repositioning. For a while, she had both: the trach mask at her throat and the clear mask over her nose and mouth. Lena hated that. Her eyes kept closing while she exhaled breathily into the mask, the plastic fogging at the centre and clearing near the edges. Theo watched the fog come and go. He watched the green tubing lie across her collarbone. He watched her try not to cry because crying made her breathing worse.

The nurse tightened the elastic once when the mask slipped with sweat. Lena's eyes flashed, humiliated, then dulled as another breath left her. The clear shell caught it. A white patch spread over the inside and shrank when the oxygen flow swept through. Theo had seen her breathe in bed, in the car, laughing, asleep on his shoulder on trains. This was different. The hospital had put a shape over her breathing and made it visible. Every exhale left proof on the plastic.

"Leave it," the nurse said when Lena tried to lift it.

Theo saw the anger in Lena's eyes. He saw the fear under it. He saw the obedience when the nurse guided her hand back down.

A few minutes later, she went quiet.

At first, quiet was welcome. Then the monitor changed.

The heart rate slowed. Ninety. Seventy. Fifty-eight.

The nurse looked up.

"Lena?"

Lena's eyes were open, but they were not fixed on anything. Her hand twitched once on the sheet. The oxygen mask fogged weakly, then not at all. The trach mask continued to flow at her neck.

"Call for help."

Theo stood.

"Step back."

"What is it?"

"Step back now."

The nurse pulled the oxygen mask from Lena's face and began bagging through the tracheostomy. The doctor arrived. Another nurse pressed fingers to Lena's neck, then to the femoral pulse.

"No pulse."

Compressions started immediately.

Theo was moved out again, but not before he saw the first minute. Lena's gown open. Defib pads still on. The trach connected to the bag. A nurse squeezing air straight into her neck while another drove compressions into her chest. Lena's head rolled slightly with each push. Her mouth was open, unused.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Huff through the trach.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Huff.

The door closed.

Theo did not go to the bathroom this time. He sat on the floor of the corridor with his back against the wall and both gloved hands over his masked face. He stayed there through the first rhythm check, through the first dose of adrenaline, through the call for the pacing pads, through the words no output and increase milliamps.

External pacing began while compressions paused for assessment. It did not hold at first. Then it caught. The monitor showed spikes and wide complexes. A doctor checked for a pulse with each electrical beat.

"Mechanical capture."

Lena's body jerked faintly with the pacing. The sedation was increased. The bagging continued. The compressions stopped, then restarted when capture failed. The team worked through it again. Drugs. Pacing. Pulse check. Bag. Compression. Pause. Pacing.

Forty minutes passed before they could keep a pulse.

When Theo was allowed back in, Lena was alive and no one pretended that meant enough.

She was sedated hard. The ventilator had been reconnected to the tracheostomy. The pacing pads remained. There were red marks on her chest from compressions. Her skin looked used, not in any poetic sense, simply handled and treated and pressed and stuck with adhesive. A fresh arterial line had gone into the other wrist. The sheets had been changed because there had been blood from one line and fluid from another. Her hair had come loose again and lay damp against the pillow.

Theo stood beside her.

The nurse watched him carefully. "Sit if you need to."

"I'm all right."

"You don't look all right."

"I'm not."

That answer was acceptable. The nurse left him standing.

He leaned close to Lena's face. There was no mouth tube now, no oxygen mask over her face. The airway was in her neck. Her lips were parted slightly. Her cheeks still had old tape shadows from the first tube. A bruise had come up along the edge of her jaw from a line attempt during one of the arrests.

"You survived again," he said.

He wanted to say he was sorry. For the bathroom. For watching. For the part of him that could still want anything while she lay there like that. He did not say it. It would have been for him, not for her.

The ventilator gave a breath.

Pshh.

Her chest rose.

* * *

Lena survived the admission.

That sentence took twenty-six days to become true.

She survived the bleed. The second operation. The transfusions. The sepsis. The kidney injury that required temporary dialysis. Three cardiac arrests. Two episodes of external pacing. A tracheostomy. Ventilator-associated pneumonia. Weakness so severe that she could not lift her own hand from the sheet the first time they asked.

She did not leave ICU quickly. She did not wake all at once. Recovery came in small, ugly increments: less noradrenaline, fewer alarms, lighter sedation, one hour breathing with support, two hours, a speaking valve for a few minutes, coughing until she cried, physio at the bed edge, a nurse holding the trach while another changed the ties.

Theo stayed because leaving made him worse. He wore masks when told. He put on gloves when told. He learned to stand aside before anyone had to move him. He learned the difference between suction and lavage, between pressure support and full ventilation, between a saturation dip and a true emergency. He learned how Lena's eyes looked when she was trying to be brave and how they looked when she had no bravery left.

He never told her about the bathroom.

He did not turn it into confession. He did not make her carry it. He carried it badly and privately and with no reward for carrying it. Sometimes, when she slept under the trach mask with humidified oxygen misting the plastic at her throat, he felt the old pull again and let shame arrive with it. He did not pretend purity. He did not pretend he had stopped being made of the same parts as before. He only made rules for himself and kept them where she could not see.

On the twenty-seventh day, she was moved to a high-dependency room.

She had no tube in her mouth. The trach remained capped for part of the day and connected to humidified oxygen when she tired. Her hair had been washed badly by Theo and a nurse and tied into a loose red knot again. The hospital gown had been replaced by a soft vest and a cardigan from the bag she had packed for one night. ECG leads still marked her chest. A cannula remained in her arm. The pulse oximeter still clipped to her finger when she slept.

Theo sat beside her in the same hoodie he had worn on the first morning, washed too many times in hospital sinks and laundry bags.

Lena had a clear oxygen mask over her mouth and nose because she had tired after physio. It was temporary, the nurse said. Ten minutes, maybe twenty. Lena hated it, but not with the panic of before. She lay back and breathed through it with her eyes half-open. Each exhale clouded the plastic.

Theo watched the fog.

Lena saw him watching.

Her voice, when she lifted the mask a fraction and spoke, was thin and damaged.

"Don't look guilty all the time."

He reached for the edge of the mask and, carefully, put it back where the nurse had placed it.

"Leave it on," he said.

Her eyes narrowed, but she did not move it again.

She exhaled breathily into the mask. The fog spread across the centre, then cleared.

Theo sat with his gloved hands folded in his lap. The nurse had made him wear them because she had just changed the trach dressing and did not want visitors touching anything. He did not mind the order. Orders were easier now.

Lena looked at him for a long time. Then she closed her eyes.

She survived.

She survived in a bed with rails up, oxygen on, scars under her cardigan, a healing hole in her throat, bruises in places neither of them had counted, and a boyfriend who loved her without being clean.

The monitor showed sinus rhythm at ninety-six, oxygen saturation ninety-four, respiratory rate twenty-two.

No alarm sounded.

longlivecpr

Emily, 41 ans, est assise sur son canapé aux côtés de son mari, comme chaque soir après le travail. Soudain, une vive douleur thoracique la traverse. En l'espace de quelques secondes, elle s'effondre et se retrouve inanimée dans son salon, victime d'un arrêt cardiaque. Une lutte acharnée pour lui sauver la vie commence alors. Cette nuit-là, tout bascule et l'existence du couple est à jamais bouleversée.

Son mari a rapidement contacté les secours et s'est immédiatement mis à massser.

Il aura fait tout son possible pendant près de 20 interminables minutes en attendant les secours.

Les secours arrivent enfin.

Ils n'ont pas perdu de temps ils l'ont rapidement intubée et continuer le massage, la situation est critique on a passé les 30 minutes d'arrêt.

Les secours n'ont pas encore dit leur dernier mot... à suivre.

chatformorebabes

Girl with Self CPR 🔥

hiddendreamsstuff

Content: time called on suicide, grieving lover

The man came running into the trauma bay just as the nurse was finishing her notes on the code. The sheet had already been pulled up over the young woman’s face and they were preparing her for transport to the morgue.

“Oh my God! Kelly! What… what… happened?” He said through his hand covering his mouth as he choked back sobs.

“Are you the husband?”The doctor walked over and put her hand on his shoulder as he cried.

“I’m sorry sir, but your wife was found unconscious by her sister with multiple wounds on her wrist that look self inflicted. We did CPR and gave her medication and a blood transfusion to try and restart her heart and she was defibrillated multiple times. We worked on her for over 35 minutes, but we couldn’t get her back. She was down for too long for any hope to make a meaningful recovery. She was pronounced dead at 456pm this evening. I’m so sorry for your loss”.

Only taking in half of the words the doctor said, the man fell to his knees and sobbed as the nurse pulled the sheet down to reveal his wife’s upper chest and face, the intubation tube still in her throat surrounded by her bluish lips on pale skin. Red spots are sprinkled around the edge of the sheet near her wrists.

Someone helped him up off the floor and walked him over to her body. He placed his shaky hands on her hair and face and gingerly lowered his forehead to hers, tears streaming down his cheeks and falling onto hers. He stood there for a few minutes sobbing until finally he said, “I’m sorry baby, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there”. He kissed her on the hairline and then the corner of her mouth, her skin cool and clammy; then he left without another word.

It was less than an hour later that he would be on the table with the same team trying to resuscitate him.

cprfet

My patient Chiara survived

cprloveralex

I WANNA DO THIS SO BAD PLEASEEEEEEE

dkmdmdmdm

girl ect

myresusfantasy

eyesfixedanddilated

Cynthia Sikes' character, Sande Swanson, dies in the Flamingo Road episode titled "The Bad and the Beautiful" (Season 2, Episode 19), which originally aired on April 13, 1982. In this episode, Sande escapes a sanitarium to stop her brother, but her car plunges over a cliff, resulting in her death.

The rain hammered the Florida coast like a voodoo drum as Michael Tyrone stood in the candlelit back room of the old Tyrone mansion, eyes closed, lips moving in a low, guttural chant. The high priestess Julia had warned him the spirits demanded precision. One wrong syllable and the curse could rebound. But Michael never doubted. He had spent weeks preparing the doll—blonde hair clipped from Sandy’s own brush, a sliver of her silk blouse pinned to its chest, a drop of her blood dried on its tiny lips.

He raised the long silver needle. “Sande Swanson,” he whispered, voice thick with old hatred and older grief. “You betrayed your blood. Now the blood betrays you.”

The needle drove straight into the doll’s heart.

Twenty miles away, on the narrow cliff road above the Gulf, Sandy’s silver 1979 Cadillac Eldorado convertible fishtailed through the downpour. She had the top down despite the storm, wind whipping her blonde hair across her face. One hand gripped the wheel; the other fumbled desperately in the console for her pack of Virginia Slims. The manila envelope full of damning evidence against Michael lay on the passenger seat. She needed a cigarette—badly. The lighter clicked, sparked, but the wind kept snuffing the flame.

“Damn it,” she muttered, eyes flicking down for a split second as she tried again.

That was all it took.

The steering went dead in her hand. The engine coughed once, then died completely. Sandy’s scream tore through the thunder as the Eldorado left the road. It hung for one impossible second against the black sky, headlights carving useless arcs through the rain, before gravity claimed it. Metal screamed against rock all the way down the sheer face of the cliff, tumbling end over end until it slammed into the jagged boulders below with a sickening crunch of steel and bone.

Field Carlyle was first on the scene—radioed by a passing trucker who had seen the lights disappear. He skidded to a stop, jumped the guardrail, and half-slid, half-fell down the rain-slicked slope. Sheriff Titus Semple and Claude Weldon arrived minutes later, lights flashing blue and red against the storm.

They found Sandy pinned behind the crumpled dashboard, blood streaking her face, one leg bent at a sickening angle, the unlit cigarette still clutched between her fingers. Her eyes fluttered open when Field touched her cheek.

“Michael…” she rasped. “It was Michael. The ritual… the doll… he killed me with a needle.”

Titus leaned in, rain dripping from his hat brim. “Slow down, darlin’. What’d you find?”

She coughed; blood flecked her lips. “Envelope… in the glove box. Everything. The New Orleans woman… the bodies… he’s not even my brother, Titus. He’s—”

Her voice fractured. Her eyes rolled back.

“Stay with me!” Field shouted, pressing his coat to the worst of the bleeding.

Paramedics fought the cliff with ropes and stretchers. They stabilized her just enough to load her into the ambulance. Sirens wailed through Truro as the rain kept falling, relentless.

At Truro Memorial Hospital, the trauma bay exploded into controlled chaos under the harsh fluorescent lights. Dr. Harlan Bennett, the grizzled chief of surgery, took one look at the monitors and barked orders like gunfire. “Get the crash cart in here! Physio-Control LIFEPAK 5—now!”

Nurses sliced away Sandy’s blood-soaked clothes. One team slammed two large-bore IV lines into her arms while another began bag-valve-mask ventilations. Her blood pressure read 60 over 30 and dropping fast.

“Sinus bradycardia—heart rate falling… 40… 30!” a nurse shouted.

“Continue CPR—five compressions to one ventilation!” Bennett ordered. “Epinephrine, one milligram IV push! Atropine, one milligram IV! Somebody prep the tube!”

The burly respiratory therapist slid the laryngoscope in and passed the endotracheal tube. “Tube in—confirmed!”

They connected her to the LIFEPAK 5 monitor/defibrillator, its distinctive green trace glowing ominously. Conductive gel was slapped onto the paddles. The machine’s capacitors began their high-pitched whine.

“Charging to 200 joules!” the nurse called.

“Everybody clear!”

The team stepped back. The first monophasic shock jolted Sandy’s body violently off the table. The monitor flickered—brief narrow complexes—then flatlined into asystole.

“Resume CPR! Five and one!” Bennett snapped. “Push another milligram of epinephrine. One amp of sodium bicarbonate—suspected acidosis from the trauma and downtime!”

Sweat already beaded on every forehead. The room filled with the rhythmic thump of chest compressions, the hiss of the ventilator, and the steady beep of the LIFEPAK 5 counting down the seconds. Ribs cracked audibly under the force.

They shocked her again at 300 joules, then 360. Each jolt arched her broken body like a marionette. More drugs flowed. More compressions. More bicarbonate and lidocaine when fleeting ventricular fibrillation appeared.

After nearly twenty-five minutes of relentless ACLS protocol, the team was exhausted. The LIFEPAK 5 showed nothing but a flat, accusing line. Dr. Bennett made the call.

“Last ditch—intracardiac epinephrine. Get me the long needle.”

A nurse handed him the 6-inch cardiac needle attached to a syringe loaded with 1 milligram of epinephrine. Bennett positioned his gloved hand over Sandy’s exposed chest, feeling for the fourth intercostal space just left of the sternum. With a sharp, practiced thrust, he drove the long steel needle straight between her ribs, piercing skin, muscle, and finally the pericardium with a faint pop. He felt the subtle give as the tip entered the right ventricle.

He pulled back slightly on the plunger—dark venous blood flashed into the syringe, confirming placement—then slammed the plunger home, injecting the concentrated epinephrine directly into her dying heart muscle.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then Sandy’s body convulsed violently. Her back arched off the table in a grotesque spasm, blood foaming at the corners of her mouth around the ET tube. The LIFEPAK 5 trace stuttered, producing a brief, frantic run of wide QRS complexes before collapsing back into flatline.

Bennett stepped back, gloves bloody, shoulders sagging. “Time of death… 11:47 p.m.”

The room fell silent except for the rain against the windows and the soft, steady tone of the LIFEPAK 5 now recording only absence.

In the hallway Field sank to his knees. Titus removed his hat and pressed it to his chest like a prayer. Claude Weldon’s face hardened into something cold and final.

Outside, miles away in the candlelit room, Michael Tyrone felt the doll grow suddenly heavy in his hands. The needle he had driven into its heart snapped clean in two. For the first time in years, the great Michael Tyrone smiled—then the smile died when the phone rang and Sheriff Titus Semple’s voice, low and lethal, told him the news.

Sandy Swanson was gone.

But the truth she had clawed from the edge of death was already loose in the world, and it had Michael’s name on it.

eyesfixedanddilated

Fictionalized Account of “COPS” Season 2, Episode 8 (Portland, Oregon – Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, originally aired November 1989; user-noted as 1988)

Grainy 16mm night-vision footage rolls. Rain hammers the cracked sidewalk outside a sagging single-story house in Southeast Portland, right off Powell Boulevard. Deputy John Blackman, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, kicks the door wider with his boot. The COPS crew follows tight—cameraman, producer, and sound guy lugging the Nagra reel-to-reel. Inside: shattered vodka bottle, blood on the kitchen linoleum, and the middle-aged woman—47, chronic alcoholic, face already purpled from the earlier beating—slumped against the couch. Her husband, reeking of booze and rage, stands over her screaming about the neighbor. On camera, Blackman yanks the man outside, slaps cuffs on him while the drunk keeps yelling.

What the episode never shows is what happened the second the husband was out the door.

Blackman turned back inside and saw her. She’d gone limp, eyes half-open, no chest rise. “She’s unresponsive!” he barked. The deputy—trained in basic first aid—dropped to his knees on the filthy floor, tilted her head back, and sealed his mouth over hers for mouth-to-mouth. Two quick breaths. Nothing. He tried again. That’s when the odd gurgle came—wet, rattling, like a clogged drain. Her loose upper dentures had shifted during the punch and now blocked the airway, bubbling with blood and saliva. Blackman gagged but kept going, pinching her nose harder, forcing air past the plastic plate while her chest barely moved.

The sound guy—a former EMT who’d left the ambulance for TV work—dropped his boom mic and jumped in without being asked. “I got compressions!” he yelled. He locked his hands over her sternum, right where the husband’s punch had landed. Late-’80s protocol: two-rescuer CPR, 5 compressions to 1 breath. “One… two… three… four… five!” he counted out loud, deep, hard thrusts that made her whole body jerk. The deputy delivered the breath on the “five,” fighting the gurgle every time. The sound guy’s count was steady, almost mechanical: “One-and-two-and-three-and-four-and-five—breathe!” Ribs cracked on the third set—audible pops under his palms—but he didn’t stop. Sweat dripped off his forehead onto her blouse. The cameraman kept rolling from the doorway, but the producer waved him back; this part would never air.

Sirens finally cut the rain. Portland Fire & Rescue paramedics burst in, took one look, and cut the deputy and sound guy loose. “V-fib—get her on the gurney!” They ripped her blouse open right there on the kitchen floor, slapped the old Lifepak 5 pads on. First shock—200 joules—her body arched like she’d been electrocuted. Still flat. They loaded her into the boxy orange ambulance while the sound guy, still gloved in someone else’s blood, helped cinch the straps.

Inside the rocking ambulance screaming down McLoughlin Boulevard, the code went full ACLS. Mouth-to-mouth had bought maybe ninety seconds; now the paramedics took over with bag-valve-mask, but the gurgling dentures kept fouling the seal until one medic yanked the plate out with a gloved finger and tossed it on the bench. Compressions never stopped—100 per minute now, the new single-rescuer rhythm kicking in. Epinephrine 1:10,000 straight into the antecubital IV. Lidocaine bolus. Second shock—300 joules. Her arms flopped wildly. Third shock—360. Nothing. The medic riding in back was drenched, counting out loud between breaths while the driver radioed ahead to Providence Medical Center.

The ER trauma bay was already set when they wheeled her in at 11:17 p.m. The code team—two docs, three nurses, a respiratory tech—took over without missing a beat. Full ACLS drill, 1989-style:

• Intubation: the resident slid the 7.5 ET tube past the bloody teeth while compressions continued uninterrupted. “Tube’s in—capnography zero, keep going.”

• More epi—every three minutes now—pushed hard through the line.

• Sodium bicarb for the suspected acidosis from her alcoholism and prolonged downtime.

• Another round of lidocaine.

• Stacked shocks: 360, 360, 360. Her chest jumped each time, skin reddening under the pads, the smell of singed flesh mixing with the metallic tang of blood.

They cracked the chest at minute eighteen—left thoracotomy right there under the harsh lights, ribs spread with a Finochietto retractor so they could massage the heart directly. Fingers inside her thorax, squeezing the flaccid muscle, trying to coax it back. More drugs: calcium chloride, another epi, bretylium when lidocaine failed. For twenty-six brutal minutes the room was nothing but the wet slap of compressions, the hiss of the ventilator, barked orders, and the flat-line scream of the monitor. Blood-tinged froth bubbled from the tube. Her dentures sat in a kidney basin on the crash cart like evidence.

At 11:43 p.m. the attending called it. “Asystole for two full minutes. We’re done.” The team stepped back, gloves bloody, scrubs soaked. The heart lay still inside the open chest. Pronounced dead—commotio cordis from a single punch to an already damaged alcoholic heart. No dramatic music, no voice-over. Just the quiet click of the monitor being silenced and the clatter of used ampules hitting the sharps container.

The husband was already in a holding cell downtown, still drunk and oblivious. The COPS episode cut the segment at the arrest, the usual “charges pending” graphic slapped over the patrol car. Viewers never saw Deputy Blackman’s mouth-to-mouth on the kitchen floor, never heard the gurgling dentures, never watched the sound guy counting out 5-and-1 compressions like it was still 1986. They never saw the thoracotomy or the final flat line under the ER lights. Just another Portland domestic call—ugly, ordinary, and off-camera lethal.

prismgenixz70

@darknesshell22 - "Could you shoot a topless video where you listen to your heart with a stethoscope, and you have a cardiac arrest?" (I couldn't keep the stethoscope on me while moving my hands / moving around - sorry!)

@cubbyninja420 - "Could you do a cardiac arrest one? Where you have a heart attack??"

Ok - first attempt! With some creative audio editing. Please be kind! And let me know what you think!

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