We all know that this could happen.
It happened to my colleagues (nurses and doctors). They all have their graveyard. We all have it,as doctors.
But I remember precisely how it happened to me.
12.02 (I was thinking of going out eating something but still had some paper work to do). Phone rings. A nurse answers. She immediately screams in the medical unit : “We have a patient who hang himself! Fast, fast!”
12.04 We took the emergency backpack and we’ve started running on the empty hall ways. The doors from one sector to another one we’re opening so slow. We were running... The doors were slamming back after our passage. 1.2.3.4.5.6.7. doors and 2 floors.
12.10 He is in the “new comers” wing. Second floor. We split. Take the stair it will be quicker. I jump 2 stairs at a time. Second floor. Full of people. I couldn’t see their faces. I could just see the patient, lying down, not moving and the sheets hanging by the window bars.
12.15 A person was already doing the CPR. The patient was not moving, I didn’t have a pulse. He seemed ... We continue the CPR. We don’t want to loose him, we don’t want to call it, we cannot loose him, breathe God damn it. 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11.12.13.14.15.16.17.18.19.20.21.22.23.24.25.26.27.28.29.30 1.2. “all hands off the patient!” again and again and again! God if you can hear me, if you are there, please, don’t let him die! At some point I think I’ve realized I cannot do anything and that he was gone.
“ ... and the hardest part was letting go, not taking part ...” (Coldplay).
12.40 The ambulance arrives. They try to intubate him. They call it off.
I don’t remember doing the way back to the medical unit. I think I’ve cried but silently as the nurse student was in shock. When I’ve arrived to the medical unit everyone knew what happened after the look of my face. I got hugs and everyone kept on saying that we did everything possible. He would have done it any how sooner or latter. Somehow, it didn’t comfort me. How could it?
It was my patient. I did everything. He died, hung, in a prison cell, alone. Young, too young, had a family.
I felt weak. I felt Small, Guilty, Inefficient. He shouldn’t have been dead.
And then I realized he was not my first and he will not be my last. Because I’m a M.D. and sometimes you can simply not save them. It’s just that the whole system is wrong. I dislike prisons and any kind of structure who uses the abuse of power. Maybe this man didn’t belong in prison. When abuse it’s the only way of justice death and all of her friends come along.
And I am tired but I won’t give in (or at least I’ll try).
“ Cause sometimes you just feel tired,
Feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up.
But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength
And just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up
And not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse.
Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out
Till my legs give out, can’t shut my mouth.
Till the smoke clears out.
Am I high? Perhaps
I'ma rip this s*** till my bones collapse...
...I will not fall, I will stand tall.” (Eminem)
So I hope that he’s in a better place. He would have done it sooner or latter prison or not prison. I have a bitter taste though. See you at a bitter end (Placebo).
And oh I do not fancy your life “dramas” as I know that worse is and always will be possible.
