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“Yes, sir.” Brielle put down the clipboard she was making notes on, turning it upside down to prevent passersby from being able to see her patient’s recorded information. She didn’t bother to explain that Bay Three was another nurse’s patient. If something was going on in the emergency room, whoever was available took care of it regardless of who’d been assigned to the patient.
She wasn’t sure where the nurse had gone during the middle of triaging the patient, but Brielle would finish it and carry out Ross’s orders.
When she stepped into the bay, she introduced herself to the fifty-three-year-old man, who was holding his chest.
Ross was right. The man shouldn’t have been left alone. His face was ruddy, his skin clammy, and he had a nervous, wild-eyed appearance that set warning bells off in Brielle’s head.
“Mr. Cook, do you have anyone with you?”
The man shook his head. “No, I drove myself here.”
Scary thought for him to have been behind the wheel of a car, but she smiled, wanting to keep him calm and definitely not wanting to raise his anxiety level.
She assisted in removing his shirt, put an automatic blood-pressure cuff on his left upper arm, and began hooking the telemetry to him. He had a hairy body and the leads wouldn’t stick. She quickly shaved the hair in the appropriate spots and stuck the leads on, getting good adherence.
She pressed the button, turning on the heart monitor. What she saw widened her eyes.
His erratic pulse was registering anywhere from one hundred and forty to two hundred beats per minute in a horribly irregular rhythm.
“Dr. Lane?” she called, keeping her voice calm. “I have Mr. Cook’s heart monitor started if you’d like to check him.”
Knowing she wouldn’t have called him if he didn’t need to come immediately, Ross stepped into the bay, saw what had concerned her and began taking action.
“Give him...” He named the appropriate medication and dosage. He rattled off more orders and Brielle made a mental note of each one, even as she began drawing up the medication to administer it.
As the man didn’t have an intravenous line in yet, Ross sat down next to him and started the IV himself.
Again, Brielle had to question where the nurse assigned to the patient had disappeared to. Ross got the line started and she pushed the medication in.
“I want Cardiology here now,” Ross told her, then turned to Mr. Cook. “At the minimum, you’re going to need to be admitted so we can check you out really well to see what is going on. Right now your heart is out of rhythm. The medications the nurse gave you will help keep you from developing a blood clot and will help the heart not have to work quite so hard until the heart specialist gets here to evaluate you.”
The man nodded as if he understood but rather than answer Ross, he closed his eyes.
The monitor’s beeping became a constant steady drone.
A drone that caused adrenaline to surge in any medical professional’s body.
Brielle’s stomach fell and her own adrenaline skyrocketed.
Mr. Cook had flat-lined.
Beginning CPR, Ross called the code as Brielle grabbed the crash cart. She prepared the defibrillator and handed the paddles to Ross.
“All clear,” he said, and immediately gave the man an electric shock with the paddles.
Nothing.
Hearing the code call, Cindy joined them and began giving the man breaths of air via a hand-held air bag as they performed two-man CPR. Brielle took over compressions while they waited for the defibrillator to recharge.
“Again,” Ross said, the second the machine was ready to deliver another charge. “All clear.”
Cindy and Brielle stepped back. Ross put the paddles to the man’s chest. The man’s body jerked from the jolt of electricity.
Brielle held her breath, waiting, hoping.
His heart gave a resounding beep on the monitor. Then another. And another.
“Thank God,” she breathed, knowing that the man was far from out of danger as at any moment the tide could turn.
