My First MVA - Part 2

Continued from My First MVA - Part 1

At one point, no one can intubate the guy and the decision is made to place a surgical airway. He is now flatline on the monitor, and I can actually see my preceptor get a little nervous when she says “I have never done one.” They reassure her as they unpack a scalpel and hand it to her. She slices into the guys neck, and gets a tube in him. They start bagging him, and I can see his stomach grow like there is baby developing in timelapse. They re-position the tube and now his chest is rising appropriately.

They ask me to start CPR. I feel blessed, nervous, and excited all at once. I remember hearing instructors say “if you don’t feel like you are breaking ribs, you probably aint pushing hard enough.” So I place my hands on his sternum and compress the hell out of his chest, all the while I am singing (in my head) ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin alive, staying alive, because I remember that the song’s tempo is 100bpm, which also happens to be the rate of compressions per minute for adult CPR. They start pushing the epi and other cardiac drugs and get a decent cardiac rhythm out of the guy, and ask if I want to help put him in the chopper. Umm, hell yes I want to help put him in, that is freakin sweet. (I grew up with a dad heavily involved with helicopters, but they just haven’t lost their awesome factor yet)

After he is loaded up, I am asked to ride with a medic I have never met to the hospital. I get in the back of his rig and see that he has two patients. One is a 5 year old boy who appears to be okay, the other is the zombie that asked me for help earlier in the call, his mental status has deteriorated somewhat. My impromptu preceptor introduces himself, lets me know we have about a 25 minute transport time to the closest trauma center, and then asked if I would do an assessment of the little boy.

Up until this point in my life, I have been generally indifferent to children. I never really knew how to handle them aside from the lame high five maneuver. I introduced myself to the little guy and got to work. Did my head to toe on him (he had actually been declared stable by a medic prior to my arrival, I was just being given practice, I think.) He had a bump on his head, so I just made sure that he stayed awake by talking with him. He didn’t cry or complain, he was a trooper. He asked me how his dad was, and it was at that moment I realized that I had done CPR on and watched his father flatline not five minutes earlier. His dad was my patient that had been airlifted. My heart sank, I had no idea what to tell him, and the only thing I could do was ask him what his favorite cereal was. It was fruity pebbles.

We dropped him off, and I was taken back to my home station. My preceptors had not arrived yet, and everyone else that had been on the call was now playing x-box.

My preceptors returned and ran down the call with me. I was able to ask some questions, and she said I had done well, and the other medic I worked with said I had done well in his rig too. I was beaming, I know it is lame, but I felt like I had met the situation head on, and felt I did well.

My awe of paramedics at this point was off the chart. The accountability they have with peoples lives is nothing short of incredible. I get a sense of the responsibility they have when I read about them, and I thought I understood. Then, I saw them in action and realized that if I want to join them, I really need to prepare my mind and my body, because CPR is much more of a workout than I thought!

I am hooked…