On My Happy Cloud

Code Blue

I was at work yesterday and starting to take my vital signs. Actually, I was training someone and kind of just sent her off on her own to do the vital signs. I was in a patients room, getting ready to hand her a box of kleenex when I heard the long beep over the intercom.

In the hospital, everyone freezes at this sound because a code of some sort is about to be called. So, if you don't know what codes are, I'll give you a brief run through. Most everywhere code black and code red are the only codes you will hear be called. Black being a tornado and red being fire. There is a code white for civil dispute, code orange for hazerdous material spill a.k.a hazmat and code yellow for mass destruction (plane crash, train wreck, bomb, earth quake, ect.) and code Adam for an abducted child in the area. All of these codes have certain procedures to be followed by people, everyone knowing their role in each of them. Then there is the code blue. The one everyone in the hospital dreads. Code blue means cardiac arrest...someone's heart has stopped beating and you have to race time to get it started again...if at all.

So, back to my story. I was in this patients room and heard the infamous long beep and I paused. After the beep a lady over the intercom will announce the code and the location. "Attention please: Code Blue 4 east. Code blue, 4 east." 4 east...my floor. Someone on my floor was in cardiac arrest. "Oh shit" I said out loud as I ran from the room without handing the patient her kleenex. A mere two rooms down from where I was, the code blue light was flashing above the door. I ran to the room and saw the head of the patients bed being lowered by means of the emergency CPR lever as a nurse started compressions on his chest.

A strange thing happens when all of this comes into play. For one second to myself, the very split second before I run from the room, I think "this is for real" and then something completely takes over my body. I have come to realize this is nothing more than an insane rush of adreneline. I have this sort of out of body experience and instead of thinking...I just do. And everything I do is everything I have ever been taught to do.

I run from the room down the hall for our crash cart (this is a cart that has a defibilater, O2, suction, heart medicine, and other life saving equipment on it and needs to get to the room of the code blue FAST) I yell out "is anyone getting the cart?" because by this time billions of people crawl from the woodwork of the hospital and run to the code. Someone says "Trish is getting it" I nod and turn around and head back to the room. I only have a second to glance over and see what's going on. I guess part of me doesn't care to linger. A nurse on the bed, arms straight down below her shaking this body with the force what could be heart starting compressions. The man was blue. His eyes were open, staring straight at the ceiling. He looked dead, I thought. He looked young. Very young. Oh no.

I started slamming shit around, a floor fan: to the corner of the room. Trash cans, tables, chairs: in the bathroom. The crash cart was coming and it needed room. More and more people came in the room. Physicians, nurses, telemetry (heart monitor) nurses, respritory therapists, house orderly's. They all had a job to do...more important than mine, which was making room for all of them. Once everything was out of the way, I got out of the room. I kicked people out who didn't need to be in there, people lingering around the doorway asking what they should do. "Just stay out of the way" I said.

My tech I was training asked what she needed to do. I shook my head. "Finish the vitals. We have to take care of our other patients too." Once she left me, I leaned up against the wall and that vicious, natural drug...adreneline...I could tell it had left me now. I was shaking. I was sweating. My head was absolutely throbbing to the point I couldn't see. I had to sit down.

The man was 48 years old. In for Divurticulitis, which basically is a really bad tummy ache in a very vague matter of speaking. He had a headache that morning and was throwing up. His wife was with him that morning and said he kept stating that he didn't feel right. And then, right before his wife left for work she helped him walk to the bathroom. Once he laid back down in bed he once more said "I don't feel right" and then...his eyes rolled back and he stopped breathing. She yelled for help and two nurses got in there and hit the code button.

He had to get intibated in the room which means they were breathing for him until he got down to CVR. It turns out....he had an anuerysm. They got him to surgery but the surgeon couldn't do anything. He said it was to much of a mess and sent him to another hospital.

I felt sick the whole rest of the day as did a lot of the people working that day with me. Adreneline. It saves lives I guess. I'm always afraid that a code will get called or worse, I will have to be the one to call it and not know what to do. But the truth is when that adreneline kicks in, it sort of takes over and I don't even have to think. You just do. It's amazing. I hate code blue's.

Much love, happiness and good health friends.

Elaine Bradley