heaven help me if what happened in our hospital last night was in the local news.
by blogging about it, i’m putting my anonimity in danger. but blog i must, because it is on my mind, and i don’t like to keep it there.
anyway, we were all kind of relaxing after returning the code cart to its proper place. the 20 year old female patient who was a roomate of my patient, all of a sudden spiked a temperature of 105 degrees, and her heart rate went up to the high 190s. we were all trying to do the best we can to help her nurse, so the patient will not code.
after almost two hours of doing stuff that doctors and nurses do to make things a little easier for a sick human being, the patient’s heart rate was down to 140s, and she was stabilized. both MICU and CCU docs decided she can stay in our unit.
the overwhelmed intern, who thought this would be his second code for this week, fell asleep on the chair while finishing up his progress notes. we did not try to wake him up.
when everbody has calmed down, they started talking about it. there were two fire trucks, a lot of policemen, and security was tense a couple of hours ago. they talked about one of the security guards who was found sitting at the edge of the rooftop. he was dangling his legs, oblivious to the fact that he was on top of a 9 storey building.
eventually, there was a temporary happy ending. he was convinced to get up, and he was escorted by the police and security, unharmed. temporary because at least, for now, he was safe. happy because at least, the rescue effort was a success.
as expected in events like these, nobody really knows the whole story. what we know for a fact was that there was a young (mid 20s) african american man who was sitting on the rooftop, of a 9 storey building, dangling his feet appearing unconcerned, before a whole group of concerned people took him out of possible danger.
what happened in between is what everybody knows, but what happened before, and what happens next was a good discussion idea for a group of half awake people whose adrenaline levels were just stabilizing after a near code experience.
it was a landslide actually.
everybody agreed that there was definitely an intent to commit suicide, that he wanted to jump from the 9th floor to the hard, heartless ground, because he was depressed, because his girlfriend left him, so he wanted to die.
and everybody agreed that he was definitely brought straight to the behavioral medical center, where he will be treated till who knows when, never to return to his previous job of being a security guard ever, because, he was obviously the one who needs a security guard.
everybody nodded in unison. they all thought they unlocked the mystery. then they all shook their heads in sympathy. they all stared blankly, obviously thinking different but similar contemplative thoughts. the silence was beginning to unnerve me, so i broke it.
i said i disgaree with them and their “scientific” conclusions.
i told them they took everything so seriously. i told them that the guy was just trying to get some fresh air. the fact that he took his security guard uniform off, and sat there relaxed and unaware of the possible dangers below, only told me that he was a young man who cannot take this scorching heat any longer, and that he was a young man who was not afraid of heights. so what if his idea of cooling off was not that simple?
nobody supported my optimistic but foolish theory. i said it’s optimistic, they said it’s the latter.
but honestly, i am inwardly hoping i was right and everybody was wrong.
because in the middle of the night, when i am tired… i don’t want to deal with the blunt irony of being in one place where people who are dying want to live, and those who are living want to die.
