Keep in mind that I have been in many, many Code Blues. I lost count of the number while I was still in nursing school. The one last night took the icing off the cake however. Many thanks to the folks of Wikipedia who’ll help me explain all the jargon I just used.
I was sitting in the nurses station watching the monitors (last 2 codes I’ve been sitting there when they started, gotta quit that) when the call light goes off in a patient’s room. I see that he’s in what looks like VTach on the monitor. So everyone’s rushing into the room. I grab the crash cart (that’s usually what I end up doing in the codes here) and drag it behind me. The guy is sitting in the chair at the foot of the bed, not in the bed (first this has happened for me) so everyone gets him down on the floor. I slapped the hands-free defibrillation pads on his chest. He was still in VTach so I shocked him. He converted back into a sinus rhythm, but wasn’t waking up. So they get to working on him. Meanwhile I’m standing on the bed trying to get the amb bag attached to the oxygen on the wall but it won’t reach. So they bring in an oxygen tank and I’m on the bed trying to connect suction. So we get him tubed. He goes back into VTach so we shock him again and we’ve got an arrogant doc in the room taking over (he was the supervising doc for the residents). He was yelling for all sorts of paralytics which aren’t stocked on our floor (we’re a cardiac post intervention unit). We give the pt Amiodarone which is an antiarrhythmic agent. The patient wakes up and extubates himself, sits up and says “What are you trying to do? Kill me?” Arrogant doc says “Nope, you did fine doing that on your own. We saved your life.” Then the patient crawls up into his bed on his own and we get him all transfered to the unit. Docs say he was going to go for an AICD today
First time I ever saw anybody extubated that quickly after a successful intubation.
Favorite quote from this code “What are you trying to do? Kill me?” from the patient
All time favorite quote from any code “What are we doing about her not breathing?” from the doctor on entering a patient’s room to find her not breathing.
