I hold his hand, I can feel his pulse in the palm of his hand. His grip is tight and then its begins to fade, his pulse starts to drop and you start to fill his hand begin to slip out of yours. The whole time you are with him he keeps saying ” I’m going to die” you hear all the time at times its because people are faking it but they you have cases like this and you know its not faking. The only thing you can do is say hang in there you wont die. Over and over no matter what you say or what you do he keeps saying ” I’m going to die, I’m going to die”. Your heart starts to raise and you have to let go and start doing what ever it is you have to do to prevent this 8 year old boy, some ones son,brother from dying. You start to work and you work hard and fast. You need to RSI the patient and start to do what you can to protect his airway. He was on a ATV hit a car and has an open femur along with an open tib-fib fracture with a HR of 50 and getting weaker. You look down at your hands and you they are covered in blood but the only thing you can really think about is that 8 year old looking at you in the eyes and telling you ” i’m going to die”….. Your ears start to ring and the only thing you can hear is your own pulse and the yelling of things that we are doing to the PT.
He becomes stable after RSI and traction of the leg. You start to relax and the first thing that you do is grab his hand and whisper… you are not dying here and you will not die today. You can hear the helicopter over the hospital and about to land. I’m able to take a deep breath. The flight crew comes in and its like angels coming down from the sky. You look around the room and you can see this look of hurt, a look that you see a lot of your co-workers but only after work.. when every thing we see normal does not affect us until the impact is over and we are alone. You load the child onto the helicopter stretcher and you start to see every one bow their heads and they start to pray to who ever it is they pray to as we start to wheel the kid out to the helipad you look behind you as you see the nursing staff standing with the family to wave good bye to the kid as he is loaded into the helicopter and rushed to a pediatric trauma center. You look at the flight crew you have became close with them as you deal with them and the only thing you can say to each other is god speed with wings spread. I start to head back to the ER to stand with the family as the helicopter starts. I can feel the engine and roar in my chest as I hold his mother as she wipes the tears from her eyes and she starts to smile like some thing has told her that her son is going to be ok. The helicopter starts to take off from the ground and you start o feel his mother hold you tight and with every inch the helicopter gets off the ground the grip gets loose. Now the helicopter is off in the distance. I turn his mother and give her a hug and for a moment we dont let go of each other and we just stand there hold each other as we were family. We let go of each other you tell them to drive safe and be careful. They start to walk to their cars as you start to head with your co-workers back into the ER… Right before I hit the doors I start to ball my eyes out and the next thing i feel is my co-workers come around and all we can do together is stand outside for a minute and hold each other as we wipe tears from our eyes.
