I work as a nurse in a local hospital and today started just like any other day... wake up... prepare to go to work, but today felt like it was the real first day of Spring. Finally I can take the bike out! First time of the year I rode into work and with this weather I started finally seeing more riders on the road. A good sight to see.
I get to work and do my typical nurse shit. But something caught my eye when I entered a patients room. On the TV I saw a LIVE helicopter footage of a wreckage of a rider who went down, maybe 20 mins from my hospital. "God damn! That looks horrible, I really hope he's OK." There was no body in the footage so I assumed he was quickly taken to a hospital, hopefully for a decent recovery. I realized I was focusing on the TV when I came back to reality and saw my patient just staring at me oddly. "Sorry about that. I ride too so it really hits home when I see something like this. Gotta stay professional so I cleared my mind and went back to providing care for my patient.
PA Overhead: "All available critical care staff report to ICU stat" ...Damn, wtf happened? I start moving to the ICU when I see a bunch of nurses and medical residents also rushing to the ICU. One guy gives the tip, "Some guy was riding and lost control", at this point I didn't make the connection but when I heard the neighborhood he wrecked it all clicked. This was the guy I just saw on fucken TV!!! Holy shit! It felt unreal like a movie.
I was on a stepdown unit when he came to the ED. I didn't see what happened in the ED but I know due to his injuries they were already in contact with Gift of life. Based on the layout of our hospital the new ED is far from OR where as the ICU is connected to the OR. So the decision was made to do this in the ICU so in the most likely case he codes, we can push him right into the OR to get the organs.
BOOM! The double doors to the ICU swung open and there he was, a 27yr old male with his head barely hanging on by a couple pieces of flesh. We started CPR and banging several drugs such as epinephrine, amioderone, vasopressin to get a heart rhythm and his blood pressure up so you don't bleed out. What I saw? Road rash all over his body, his skull was fractured so parts of his head was inflating with blood, and his neck was lacerated open. Xray showed a severed spinal cord.
At this point this guys family showed up. It fucked me up more seeing his family more than anything. Especially when his grampa arrived. This old man outlived his grandson. Horrible shit... This guy was fucked but we weren't giving up! He was literally at the last 1% of his life and we were trying to bring him back up. The drugs weren't helping and at this point. I was ontop of the guy doing compressions to keep oxygen and the drugs flowing through his body. I was compressing, compressing, and fucken compressing.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Asystole. No pulse. I was compressing this guys chest like I've never done before and thats when the head Doc shouted outloud "Does anyone disagree with stopping" No one replied... just silence. The Doc looked at me, "Stop the compressions".... I looked at the Doc, looked back at this guy...and I stopped. Doc: "Time of death, 1:55pm" From here we transported him to the OR where we were able to save all of his organs except the brain. They will go out to help someone in need.
End of my shift I got on my bike and sat there for about 10 minutes. Fellow rider died and we weren't able to save him. It killed me inside. I was on edge the entire time riding home. I would also like to mention this guy was wearing no gear. I'm sure a helmet would have greatly increased his survival chance. So wear your fucken gear!
Anyway, Ride in Peace.
Edit: Added why he went to the ICU and added the drugs we used, since some people thought I made this all up. Done for the night, got a 12hr in the morning.