Straight Talk from the Stanford ER

The aftermath and story from the ER room on a gun shot victim...BD

“We should have known he was dying,” my Attending said to me with a somber look on her face. “These young guys always fight you when they are getting ready to die,” and that’s exactly what Rodney did-he fought us. One minute the picture of perfect health, the next, gone-his only memory the steady beep of a heart monitor, a trail of blood leaving the trauma bay. Rodney died in the operating room.

Once we had his chest cavity open, we discovered his heart was empty, there was no blood inside of the chambers, and it was barely squeezing. It was obvious he had bled a lot. The surgeon clamped the aorta below the heart in order to maintain blood pressure to the heart and brain…blood continued to pour out of his right chest, and from above his heart…”I can’t tell where this is coming from, I just can’t tell…” I can still hear ringing in my ears.