Code Blue

Jiin was sitting at the desk completing her admission notes of yet another psychiatric patient with her consultant beside her writing furiously in his illegible handwriting. She mentally kicked herself to work faster, frowning at the realisation that she was meant to be home and wrapped up in her snug blanket 45 minutes ago.

The day had begun on an ill-boding note. 4 new names were written on the board as she stepped into the nurses station that Monday morning. 8 hours and another 2 admissions later, she was still stuck in the room with virtually non-existent ventilation writing notes.

Paper work. Gah. I spent 6 years in medical school to be a goddamn secretary.

A small beeping alarm went off in the background. Jiin sat up in her chair, there was no movement and no rushing of nurses in response to the noise. She flicked her eyes over to her consultant who was still writing furiously with no intention of stopping anytime soon. She decided to ignore the alarm in favour of completing her work and getting the hell out of there. This would've made the 4th false alarm that day.

30 seconds later, the incessantly annoying beeps finally got the better of her and she rose to investigate its cause. Stepping out into the ward, she saw a nurse coming towards her.

"Oh good. Dr Jiin. Come quick. Patient WW collapsed on the floor." he said in a hurry.

Jiin's ears pricked up, she walked briskly towards the patients' dining room, thinking that it was most likely a vasovagal that the nurses had over reacted to. In 5 steps she entered the room and immediately zeroed in on the body laying on the ground, already in a left lateral position with another nurse repeated calling out to WW.

No response. Shit. She knelt onto the ground, subconsciously noted the blue lips and pulled open her mouth to check for food boluses. Nothing there. Her patient emitted a single strangled gasp.

"Is she breathing?" Jiin asked aloud, placing her fingers before WW's nose, waiting to feel misting and flow of air. Nothing. No rise and fall of the chest. Jiin felt her own heart starting to pound.

She hurriedly felt for the carotids. "I can't feel a pulse."

Sirens were going off in her head as she rolled WW onto her back. Jiin placed her ears to WW's chest and couldn't fucking hear a heart beat over the 3 layers of clothing.

She ran back to her office for her stethoscope, still in disbelief of what was happening and yelled for one of the nurses to call a code blue, urgency evident in her voice, as she ran back to her patient.

No heart sounds. WW made a few more strangled gasps but was still not breathing spontaneously. Jiin pounced onto the chest as she started doing compressions, her thoughts rushing incoherently, doubts registering at the fore front of her consciousness about whether she was doing the right thing. She brushed them aside.

"Do you have a geudels?" She asked the nurse who was just kneeling there in shock for a tube to secure the airway.

"No. I don't" He answered but did not get up to find one.

In a matter of seconds, another nurse rushed in with the crash cart and asked Jiin what she needed.

"Give me a bag and mask." She said as she continued to jump on the the chest. The nurse returned with a mask without a bag, placed it around WW's mouth and left her airway unattended. Jiin silently screamed in her head.

She had been doing over 50 compressions and she needed to give breaths now. She peeled off the goddamn-sign-of-incompetence of a mask and grabbed the real thing. Noting that this nurse, despite his mistake, at least had the sense to take over the compressions from her.

Jiin struggled to secure the mask over the patient's mouth while doing a chin lift with her tiny left hand and manually pumped air into WW's lungs with her other hand as she heard other people stampeding into the room. The cavalry were here.

The major tasks were taken over from her. Her hand trembled uncontrollably as she squirted the blood into the various colour coded tubes. She fumbled with her pen and could barely control it well enough to scribble tiny details onto the tubes before getting a nurse to run it over to pathology. She stepped back into a minor role as she made phone calls, pulled medical histories, latest investigation results and hunted for equipment.

30 minutes later, the mob of doctors and nurses finally ceased their activity and called time of death. Jiin was left with the paperwork she had abandoned earlier that evening. Amongst the adrenaline fueled chatter back in the office, Jiin finished her paper work, shrugged when faced with comments and smiled goodbye to her colleagues who said she did a good job.

She drove the short distance home, tore into a bowl of canned soup, buried herself in her daily dose of manga and chatted to her boyfriend about the incident over msn as a form of a debrief.

It wasn't until she lay in bed and closed her eyes at 2am that her thoughts went involuntarily to the code blue. The doubts, the what-ifs, the i-should-haves came raining down upon her as she replayed the memory of the whole situation in a hazy adrenaline induced shroud. She muttered "I'm sorry" as the stricken faces of the family members surfaced. Minutes of futile tossing and turning left her with no choice.

She grabbed her bedside phone and clumsily dialed a number in the dark.

"Hello?" She heard her boyfriend's voice tinged with surprise and broke down in a torrent of tears, unglamourous hiccups and nasal whines.

At last, the release of anguish.