“How are you today Jim?” I asked.
His bulging eyes opened ever so slightly.
He shook his head quietly.
His big, ruddy face lay cramped and swollen underneath the plastic mask.
His very life was in the hands of the machine by his side.
He’d led the life that smokers often do
Twenty a day soon it was forty
Life was fun until it caught up with him….
While he dozed I watched the numbers flicker on screen above his head.
The blue waveform held firm on 88
This was going to be long shift!
As he turned to hold his wife’s hand, the alarms rang out
84 became 80 and soon plummeted to below 70
His clammy hand lay limp in his wife’s
His bloated face had turned blue
Jim was no longer breathing!
I called for help!
“Cricoid pressure” they ordered..
Putting my fingers on Jim’s bull neck I applied cricoid pressure
Jim’s bull neck meant the passage of the tube would be tortuous
And it was!
Vomit spewed out as the plastic tube was rammed down his now cyanosed throat
It spewed up and out over the white sheets and beyond
Yellow and smelly the suction failed to cope.
“Put some gloves on Meg!”yelled someone
“Too late” I cried.
I glanced at my now vomit -covered hands.
Just part of the awful tapestry.
“Did he have a tooth missing?” the IMO asked
No-one knew.
Merely a casualty of the drama, I suspected.
Monitor alarms bellowed
His oxygen was dangerously low.
His Co2 was so high that it failed to register.
He will die! I sighed.
The atmosphere was grim
Other patients wondered if their turn was coming
Someone sought to calm them
We continued to bag him.
Through his vomit and now traumatised mouth we forced oxygen
down, down into the ravaged lungs
We awaited the Intensivist
Where was he?
We had rung half an hour ago!