Code Blue

He was called in over the radio as a full code. A 45 year old found down in the yard by his wife.

He was a big guy with a full head of dark brown air. Wearing shorts and dockers, his tee-shirt long cut off, pieces of it peeking out from underneath his shoulders. His face was pleasant, now blue and flaccid. I couldn't look at it. We coded him longer than usual, with no return of rhythm or pulse. No medical history given, he was just a guy on a beautiful Saturday working in his yard.

The wife finally arrived with two of her girlfriends in tow. The utter angst on her face was enough for me to take her to his bedside and hold her while she cried. No, he takes no medications, no he doesn't smoke or drink, he's had no complaints at all about his health.

They had been working in the yard and she had slipped into the house for some water, only gone a few minutes. The overwhelming sadness I was witnessing felt surreal. I've seen hundreds of these codes in my career. How I can stand back and be an observer to such human emotion is a mystery. It doesn't seem normal to be so removed, clinically distant, an observer of another human being losing his life.

I wondered about this. Are medical professionals the ultimate actors? Do we learn to quell our emotions so well that we are affected in our personal lives?

No, but sometimes I question my sanity.