Solo [Job Thread] One Night Shift

[Ruby Majalenka]

[23rd Spring 513]

It was around midnight, and I just came back from the canteen for an evening snack. Passing a treatment room — where one is usually treated until deemed stable enough to be moved upstairs — I noticed a strange sight.

A young Vantha man lay on the bed, his families sitting in a row at the other side of the room. There were three staffs in the room, two Vanthas and a human, all of them seniors. They were performing resuscitation to a cardiac arrest patient. However what piqued my interest was how the procedure was performed.

The pumping wasn't done with vigor as it should have, and the patient 's head was looking down his body when it should've been cocked upwards to not obstruct the breathing passage. Complete with the grim face the staffs wore, the scene shouted : "Let him be. He's gone."

[Ruby Majalenka]

"Excuse me." I said, and felt the patient's palm.

Still warm. According to my teaching doctor, it indicated that a while ago blood flow was still going, which also meant a beating heart. Resuscitation could restore heartbeat, but that might not be enough. What can stimulate the cardiac muscles then ?

Ah yes, adrenaline, but does it possess other harmful side effects ? None as far as I remember, but what if there is one ? A doubtful and careful mind is good to absorb new understandings, but in hectic situations it slows the solution.

"Have you administered adrenaline shots ?" I asked. The staffs shook their head. "Please give him one, two, three, four ampoules, anything we got ! Oh, I'll install the IV, just the usual saline solution ! (to dilute the blood, thereby lessening the cardiac muscle's burden)" At the request the staffs seemed to regain a jolt of energy. Two staffs went to get the shots while the remaining staff pulled a chair next to the bed and stood on it to allow for easier pumping.

I had prepared the IV and was about to stick the needle in when it happened :

The vein had collapsed and I couldn't find it.

[Unfinished, continued next morning, good night viewers ! ]