How long until the heart dies? Like a teacher in a crowded, unruly third grade classroom the sinoatrial node desperately tries to get the ventricular myocardium back in order, as every firing cell raises its voice in an attempt to be the loudest.
Who’s that outside?
By the time it’s your turn for compressions (your turn, what an exciting privilege, to finally do something with direct impact!), there is no more cracking of ribs to be had, the sternum lightly bounces up and down under your hands until you adjust a little higher because you’re told your compressions aren’t effective (Effective!), and you push down harder, release more, using the full weight of your upper torso, your beating, living heart pumping faster and faster from the potent, intoxicating fumes of a concoction of exertion and stress and hope and death, and CRACK.
You didn’t know there would be this much recoil. Bump, bump, bump. Another one bites the dust. Bump, bump, bump.
Who’s that outside? They’re on their phones.
Epi, calcium, bicarb, epi, calcium, bicarb, epi, calcium, bicarb, there are no chaplains here. Our shocks make the body move in a perverse pantomime of real life, “Get your hands off me!”
Who’s that outside? Their faces are stone.
Twenty bodies inside the room clustered together in activity, a search party of ants fighting a thrashing caterpillar, working together to defeat the beast and bring home their prize.
Bump, bump, bump. Another one bites the dust.
Who’s that outside? Finally they can see the heart, as the ants march one by one from the room, shedding their yellow gowns like magnolia petals at the end of spring, no one looking at the silent observers outside, their faces still stone.
Soft-spoken words of apology cannot chisel emotion onto stone.
It takes the heart thirty thousand, eight hundred and sixty days, eighteen hours, twenty minutes, and five seconds to die.
Share your "A Death In Blue” story in the comments section below.
Subscribe to the blog by entering your email in the subscription box below. Don't rely on Facebook to get notifications for new posts. We only email when a new post is published. No spam. If you are reading this on your phone, just keep scrolling down to get to the Subscribe box.
Give us some love by sharing the blog. Forward the blog to people you think would like it. Post the blog on social media. Like and Follow our Facebook Page. Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Instagram
Keep Scrolling down for Dr. Garrett’s Bio
Alexander Garrett MD
Alex Garrett is a PGY-4 Emergency Medicine resident at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. He is originally from Maine but moved to California for his education. He is a proud graduate of Stanford University, and he received his MD from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is deeply interested in medical education and social emergency medicine