What will I tell my boys?

We got the call that a 44 year old female was coming in hot with an asthma attack. She arrives in full arrest, lungs too tight to bag and the story is that she was getting ready for work when she told her boyfriend to call 911. Somewhere in the story as I was triaging, a by-stander had told EMS there was some meth smoking going on prior to the incident. Crap, now I have to call the sheriff and all that poo cuz she dies and we don't know what happened.

She looked well nourished, no meth teeth, no skin pickings. Coming in, she was a Jane Doe but we soon had a name and word that her estranged husband was in the waiting room, alone.

He had gone to the house to pick up his two boys age 5 and 7, when the first responders had just arrived. Slowly, we get the story that he was separated from her, that they use to be drug addicts and had been clean for over 5 yrs. He had left her in April because he thought she might be using again, but wasn't sure. She had a boyfriend living with her but he had left the scene as soon as he called 911.

All he could say when told that she was dead was "Oh my God, what will I tell my boys?" Over and over he said it. I thought I was going to lose it when he pulled out the cell phone and showed me pictures of two tow-headed cherubs. Seriously, peeps, this one got to Rachedy, the cold dark heart that never bleeds was almost a sniffling wad of snot.

After all was said and done, the sheriff found a meth lab in the house and were actively looking for the boyfriend.

It's been three days and for some reason I can't let this one go.

Damn.