A paramedic describes the emotional toll of four 12-hour shifts over four days,from a failed resuscitation attempt to the satisfaction of a cardiac arrest survivalAs soon as my crewmate and I sign on, our dispatcher (the person who sends us to 999 calls) sends us straight out on a job. It’s a cardiac arrest. The patient is elderly and it’s clear the prognosis is bad. We start resuscitation and I try to insert a breathing tube into her mouth to give her oxygen. Her airway is blocked and I can’t rep the tube in. Her heart is in a rhythm that means we can’t shock her with the defibrillator so we carry on with compressions. A second crew arrives. They can’t rep a needle into the patient’s veins, or so set one into her bone to give her drugs.
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Source: theguardian.com