Sunday Morning! I was on the morning shift duty. I already consulted 10 patients. At around 10:30 am, a 49-year-old patient entered into my chamber, walking. When I called him, he was talking with another patient sitting in the waiting area outside of my chamber. He came and sat down.
"What's the problem?"
"I am having mild chest pain for the last 2 hours. Maybe, a gas problem."
"Any radiation of the pain to the jaw, and left arm?"
"No"
"Any sweating?"
"No"
"Any nausea/vomiting?"
"Yes, one time vomited"
He was calm and quiet, sitting on the chair. I put a pulse oximeter on one of his fingers. I saw a reading, like saturation 96% and pulse 60 beats/m. Then suddenly the number disappeared! I looked at his face! He started groaning and falling from the chair! It was less than 2 minutes since he entered my chamber!!
I prevented him from the fall. I shouted for help. He came alone in my chamber. The door was shut! Luckily, a nurse was near the door. She came running. He was quite a heavy guy. With the help of another patient (who was waiting for a report), I placed him on the floor.
He was violent initially with uncoordinated body movements. We couldn't find any pulse and heart sounds. He was still groaning and grasping! There was froth in his mouth after a while. It was like a seizure attack. But, not getting any pulse and heart sound, and seeing the grasping, we considered it as a cardiac arrest. So, we started CPR and artificial breathing. But, it wasn't easy to perform all of these!
All the nurses and another doctor had already come. We continued CPR and decided to shift him to the regional hospital's emergency department. The settings of my clinic are not suitable to handle such emergency cases. We managed anyhow. He was in full cardiac arrest when we put him in the ambulance. His movements stopped already!
We continued CPR in the ambulance. The emergency department was already informed. They were prepared for us. The code team took over the case immediately. He was in V-Fib when he was attached to a monitor. The code team continued the resuscitation process. We stayed there for around 10-15 minutes. He was given shock every 2 minutes, along with CPR. An advanced airway was placed. We briefed the team and returned to our clinic. He was still under arrest when we returned.
Later we came to know that they could revive him, Alhamdulillah. He was placed in the ICU but his condition was still quite critical. In the night, we got another update. He was shifted to another hospital for a coronary angiogram. That means he was still alive, Alhamdulillah.
After returning to my chamber from the emergency department, I checked his previous visits. He was a diabetic!! (The things happened too fast that we couldn't check his previous history). That could be the reason that he didn't feel the severity of the pain from the beginning.
A calm and quiet morning turned into chaos within a few seconds!!
How unpredictable our lives and moments are!!!
A B&W photograph, completely unrelated to the above texts
