Damn. The patient could collapse any second, and when that happens, we need to move fucking fast.
Ray has arrived by now, too.
‘He’s losing consciousness. Oxygen mask!’ Jaden shouts.
‘I’ll do it,’ Ray says, whereupon I shove the prepared mask into his hand.
We should be ready for the worst-case scenario, so I pull the pads for the defibrillator out of the bag and run behind the sofa. Jaden grabs the T-shirt of the now unconscious patient with both hands at the collar and rips it open so his chest is bare.
Now he gives me a nod, a fire blazing in his eyes. Ray pulls the oxygen mask over the patient’s face while I stick the defibrillator pads onto his chest.
‘Get him an IV line, he’s getting heparin i.v. and ASA,’ I say. Quickly, I connect the pads to the defibrillator, and only then do I breathe out for the first time since I got out of the ambulance.
Now that he’s hooked up to the defibrillator, he’s at least a little more secure. If ventricular fibrillation sets in, we can shock him immediately.
Jaden inserts the IV line, I grab the meds from the emergency doctor’s bag. As soon as the infusion is running, Jaden and Ray lift the man onto the stretcher and secure him. There’s nothing more I can do than snatch up all the bags the two of them can’t carry and follow the trio out of the apartment.
The two of them skillfully maneuver the patient down the stairs. Jaden’s instructions are precise and controlled, which weirdly fascinates me.
Ray is totally focused and doing a great job, but Jaden’s effort goes far beyond that. He doesn’t seem to care that he just rammed his elbow into the wall. He doesn’t care that his shins keep slamming hard against the edge of the stairs over and over again.
Only one thing matters to him: the patient. He looks as if he would give his own life for this stranger if he had to.
Yesterday I thought I understood what Ray meant when he called Jaden a superhero. But this here… seeing him like this… so in his element, so present with every fiber of his body, so unreservedly ready to give everything, that’s something else again.
A thousand thoughts race through my head as I follow the team to the ambulance. The double doors at the back stand open.
‘On three.’ Jaden catches Ray’s eye, his chest heaving. ‘One. Two. Now.’
And already the patient is safely in the ambulance.
‘Get in,’ Jaden calls to me.
Ray hurries to the driver’s door, I jump into the vehicle with Jaden, who closes the doors behind me.
I register the blue lights and the siren only peripherally, just like the fact that the vehicle starts moving, the radio crackles, and Ray reports something to dispatch. I don’t feel whether my heart is racing, my legs are weak, or I have a fever. My focus is on the patient.
Jaden hooks up the monitoring screen. The readings are still critical, but at least the man seems stable. Even so, I keep checking all the values, making sure the IV is running properly, and trying to mentally prepare myself for every scenario that could threaten on the way to the hospital.
Even with optimal treatment, after our initial care his risk of dying is still between ten and thirty percent. The likelihood that he will suffer permanent damage is even between thirty and fifty percent.
Every second counts. Accordingly, we race through Halifax.
‘Is the ER notifying the cath lab?’ I shout to Ray.
He steers the vehicle around a curve. ‘Already done.’
That’s good. What else? What more can we do?
My gaze darts frantically to the monitor—the readings are stable. To the IV—running. To the patient—still unconscious.
Restlessness grips me.
Tonight my biggest worries were the stress and the question of whether my body was up to it. But I hadn’t considered the situation I’m in right now, even though it’s just as bad.
In the emergency room, I leave the patients once I’ve done my job and there’s nothing more I can do for them acutely. After all, there is always another emergency waiting, and the patientsare in good hands with the nurses. Every second I spend with my patients, I am active. I amdoingsomething.
Now I’m forced to sit idly beside this man who so urgently needs a kind of help I can’t give him here in the vehicle. To race through the city, with the siren in my ears and the jolting that seizes my body again and again. I can’t do a thing, I can only hope that we reach the hospital in time.
