Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)

All Emergency Department Volunteers are required to have CPR certification. Today was my first time putting that into practice.

With the trauma team hovering over the patient, a nurse looked at me and said, "You! Can you do CPR?" I elbowed M, a middle-aged male volunteer who has far more upper body strength than I. He hurried to the bed to relieve a sweat-drenched nurse who had compressing for five minutes. The patient's chest rose and fell with frantic speed. CPR, against popular belief, does not restart the heart. With no pulse, we were fighting against brain tissue death for a chance at life support-assisted survival.

Minutes later, M was running out of steam. I had been mesmerized by all of the different procedures the doctors were running on the patient. Scalpels were used. Tubes were everywhere. The trauma room floor was littered with the empty packaging of syringes, bloodied cloths, empty IV bags.  M called my name. I put on a face shield and stepped up on the stool for leverage. We exchanged positions without missing too many beats.


Pump, pump, pump.


It had felt so easy on the mannequins. Part of my CPR training was kneeling over a half-torso dummy on the ground and giving halfhearted compressions. This was different. This was a real life emergency. I wasn't prepared for how slippery and cold bare skin is. No one told me how awkward of an angle my arms would be with straight elbows, or how much of my entire body weight I had to throw onto the chest just to compress it a few centimeters. No one told me that looking into the patient's face would return a glazed stare and a half-opened mouth. I prayed with every forceful thrust of my stiffened arms.  

Live. Live. Live. 

The general rule for giving CPR is to keep going until you can't anymore. I had thought that was peculiar. What does it mean if you can't anymore? Do you just give up and walk away? Or do you succumb to exhaustion yourself, and then there would be two victims, total?

I think I am a relatively fit individual, but my upper body strength is lacking. After about just one minute of fast, hard compressions, I became exhausted.  My palm was slipping on top of freshly applied ultrasound gel and squirming in my glove. My forehead was sweaty. My compressions became shallower and slower, and I wanted desperately to stop. Fortunately, A, my favorite nurse, was ready to take over behind me.

"Good job, buddy," he said as he patted my shoulder and positioned for takeover. I'm convinced that he calls me buddy because he doesn't know if he should call me Connie or Constance (my badge says the latter). He gave the patient many good, deep compressions as I wiped my brow and stood bedside with M, waiting for our next turn. 
 
A CPR-giving queue had been summoned over the Emergency Department PA system, but the nurses kicked off some people who weren't doing it correctly, and other people had their own patients to attend to. It was just the three of us eventually. Ten minutes elapsed. Then twenty five. Then one hour. My arms felt like they were going to detach from my shoulders, and my scrubs were soaked with seawater mingled with sweat. A and M would compress for minutes, while I took a much shorter turn. I worried that sometime during my turn, the attending doctor would say, "Stop! Time of death.." and I would back away from the bed, knowing that maybe there was something that I could have done. I'd never felt more useful or useless in my life.