No one can truly anticipate what the next moment may hold. Could stepping into the shower be the last act of your life? Or turning left instead of right dictate the end of your existence? That the hug you got this morning be the last embrace you ever feel?
There is dying, and then there is dying. As a hospice nurse for 14 years, and before that nursing in the operating room and in psychiatry, I’ve been familiar with death in its several guises. In the operating room setting, surrounded by doctors with equipment nearby for unforeseen crises, and with an awareness of possible outcomes, death only rarely intruded unexpectedly.
As a hospice nurse, death was instead an expected outcome, one that often came softly, even gently, its arrival announced and prepared for. There, death took on a different meaning in many ways — a time to weep, but also to smile with life’s memories shared. One didn’t know exactly when death would arrive, but we knew it would.
And then there is another kind. The death that seems to step out from behind a tree or the corner of a building. The death that speeds beside us on a highway, only to seemingly collide with us on a whim. The death that suddenly kidnaps a healthy man in the middle of his workday and flees with him to a place for which neither he nor his family would have had time to pack a bag.
I saw that this week. I was the last person to see and talk with a friendly clerk in a large store before he suddenly stopped speaking and fell backwards onto the floor.
I am a nurse, and yet I was caught off guard. He had simply been there, chatting and making jokes, and then he was not. I raced behind the counter and felt for a pulse even as I saw him losing color. There were no other customers near and so I ran into the aisles, calling, “Call 911! Call 911!”
I ran back to the man, but could feel no pulse and noted his color had deepened to ashen blue. I prepared to do CPR when a tall man strode behind the counter saying he was a first responder.
Without hesitation, he too took the unconscious man’s pulse and began rapid chest compression.Other customers in the store were now arriving, not interfering, but offering pertinent help. One woman made contact with Emergency Services and stayed on the line giving them the address.
Others attempted to find out if there were a defibrillator in the store or in adjacent stores. There was not. And all the while the first responder continued CPR, halting to check for a pulse or spontaneous breathing, and when there was not, continued.
Within minutes, police arrived and took over for the first responder. Then EMTs came on the scene, followed by Fire Rescue. Soon there were nine trained emergency professionals working over the sales clerk. With them, they brought and used a mechanical chest compressor and a defibrillator, which would be used three or four times. An IV was started and the man intubated to provide oxygen.
Eventually, he would be taken to the hospital where others would attempt to rest his life back from the capriciousness of death.
Though I have worked in health care for many years, I have never been more impressed than with the precision and knowledge of each of the emergency personnel. Falling into a team, they, along with passersby and volunteer collaborators had all worked at breakneck speed to steal back this sales clerk’s life.
Walking from the store, as sirens wailed their way toward the hospital, I stared at the Christmas shoppers, carts full of poinsettias and sparkling decorations, holiday carols now implanted in every head, and I wondered how many this season will consider the Christmas gift we’ve all already been given.
How many will cherish their next days, next hours — even the next minute of precious life they have hold of now? How many will take the time to embrace someone a little longer today or to whisper a “sorry” when it’s hard.
For in truth, No One Knows the Hour… but we should be sure if it’s this one, we’ve got done what we know we should.
Freelance writer and artist Marina Brown, R.N., MSN, can be contacted at mcdb100@comcast.net.