continuing this with the specifics of my own fantasy:
a handsome boy, 20 or so, soft with muscle, a decent height, shaggy brown hair, is brought into the ER after being found down for an unknown amount of time. one moment he was fine, then he went into a different room then his roommate, and then 15 or so minutes later he was found in the floor pulseless, half on his chest, knees pulled to his chest like he'd writhed before his heart gave out. all his beautiful muscle was limp, softer then ever, his abdomen unguarded as his roommate turned him over and shook him violently. hair falling in his half lidded eyes that gave no reaction to his roommate slapping his cheek and brushing back the dark strands.
his roommate did CPR for 15 minutes while the ambulance wove through their crowded campus city and to their dorm room. he hadn't known CPR, not truly, but he tried, listening to the 911 dispatcher. he'd pumped down down down on his roommates chest. he pumps skittle too shallow here and far too deep there and his posture isn't quite right, his rhythm is too fast whenever the dispatcher isn't counting for him. the only thing right he does is mouth to mouth, pressing his mouth to his roommates without shame.
he's urinated, bladder giving way to the total release of cardiac arrest, his soaked sweatpants clinging to him, to the outline of his cock. his legs splayed and half-arched, putting him on morbid display.
no amount of begging from his roommate has willed his pulse back, not even for a second, not even a stutter. he just lays dead beneath him. body twitching. not quite violently, his roommate isn't working him hard enough for that. but his twitches and spasms and gasps agonally.
and then the paramedics are there. forcing their way into the dorm. pulling the roommate back. the boy's chest is now being assaulted. a paramedic bigger than him in most ways is pumping his weight deep into his chest. his chest collapses, his stomach bulges, his throat pulses and groans lifelessly. the I-GEL a rape on his unconscious throat, forced into him by steady hands of a second paramedic.
his shirt is cut away and abandoned, exposing his already broken chest, milky grey-tinged skin exposed, nipples soft despite the chill spreading through his lifeless body, ribs showing through his flesh. they move to get him on a 12 lead, gloved hands applying the leads to his chest around the hands currently breaking in his sternum.
they're in the 20th minute of CPR, the first minute of good CPR, and anywhere from 25 to 35 minutes that the boy has been down. he is in asystole. not a flicker from that heart of his. firm hands pull out an arm to place a BP cuff and tape a pulse-ox clip. his BP doesn't even register and his sat is a flat 68%.
not with IVs in. not with the emergency IO access. not with his lungs being bagged with constant oxygen, his chest rising and falling at its whims. not with all the meds they pump into him. not with his chest being broken in. not with his roommate calling to him.
nothing changes as he's moved to the backboard. as he's rolled and manipulated like a rag doll. as he's strapped down. as AED pads, all but useless for now are applied to his chest. as the arc of the LUCAS is positioned over him. his hands tied up around it, fingers curling against the plastic, black straps cutting into his wrists. the piston pushed down to his sternum, forceful hands being pulled away, the rubber suction paddle pressed down onto his mottled chest, grays and purples swirling with lifeless bruising, the paddle pushed down with some pressure to ensure each compression his the target depth.
his body pulses with rasps as the machine assaults him. his chest caves. even deeper than before, and now it's pumped in at a perfect mechanical pace and depth. his chest is pumped full of breath every couple of seconds via the ambu bag and I-GEL. lifeless groans leaving him with each compression. his fingers pulsing as the LUCAS causes his shoulders to bob and strain, his IV lines swinging slightly where they run from his arms to the bags of fluids and drugs at use, a purple dual-headed extender hanging from his bicep.
he's carried out of his apartment like that, Lifepak between his legs, one medic bagging, one watching the monitor, prepared to stop the LUCAS at the sign of a potential rhythm, while a third and fourth carry the backboard out to the stretcher, before dropping him in it.
they're a collective of calls and orders, a flurry of movement. drugs being pushed, differentials shouted out, hands manipulating the boy's body like it was nothing. and it really wasn't. he gave no resistance.
in the ambulance, his soiled sweats are cut off, down the side seam of his right leg to get better access to his femoral where a medics hand rests pressed into it, trying to feel for any change in the currently mechanical like that denotes life. it also makes it easier to access the IO placed in his shin, no longer having to bunch his pant leg up. the left is then cut with the fabric being left over his cock to keep from unnecessarily exposing him, giving him an ounce of decency. but the beautiful carving of his pelvis and silky trail of pubic hair is still out for everyone to see.
the medics otherwise keep at it, but there's no change, not a single one in the 20 minutes they've worked on him. not a blip, stutter, or flutter.
the ambulance is just the sound of the LUCAS. the hiss thud click hiss thud click hiss thud click. and the thick sound of the suction being pulled against. and the hiss and gurgle of the ambu bag breathing into dead lungs.
even the crew had fallen quiet. there wasn't much to say. little announcements of a med being pushed here, or a vital update there. but otherwise? the latter half of the 20 minute ride was all but silent.
the ER is a whole new flurry, fresh faces and fresh hands that think they have a better chance. the stretcher is dragged off the ambulance with a clatter and a thump, the lifeless body in it jostling limply, only held in by the straps.
he's wheeled into a storm of voices, directing his stretcher to a private bay. the backboard lifted and dropped on the bed. the scraps of his sweatpants fall away, cock exposed for a few moments while other things took priority over covering him up. lines and wires are switched over to the hospital's equipment. AED pads changed out for bright orange gel pads. they pull the I-GEL, coated in drool and mucus, dripping down onto his face as it's discarded, and exchange it for an ET tube and hook him up to a ventilator, synching it with the LUCAS, which he isn't separated from, they see no need in halting such good compression.
but quickly, as tests are run and come back, as an ECHO is done on his chest, during and between compressions, all showing a clean bill of health— healthy heart. no plaque, no visible defects, no clots, no free fluid, no damage. nothing in the tests, that isn't the bodies chemical reaction to death and the organs subsequently shutting down, show anything off —other than the fact he's been in cardiac arrest for the better part of an hour now, they grow... dismal.
nothing has worked. no medication, no intervention, no attempt to resuscitate him has been met with a single reaction.
but he's so young. a college student. his whole life ahead of him. none of them want to stop. so they keep running the code, even if all they can do is try and busy their hands with nothing while machines work on the boy, but even that becomes difficult.
for minutes— 5. then 10. the LUCAS battery is changed. then another 35 —a machine pumps a lifeless chest. air fills cold lungs. lungs filling with fluid as his kidneys fail. lungs that gurgle and rasp. the ET tube had to be suctioned clear more then once now, as pulmonary edema comes into play.
they don't call time for a long time. even as members of staff are pulled away to more viable patients. eventually it's just one doctor. he just watches the grotesque scene until the second LUCAS battery dies on the kid. he calls it then. after almost 2 hours. time of death is 6:21 PM. no obvious cause of arrest.
blakekathryn
kianamaiart
theartofmadeline
