Thursday, October 14, 2010

Dead People In The Morning

I'm an early riser so I often hear the rescue squad or fire engine responding from the fire house located across the street. It doesn't bother me me, I find it comforting. Not because I feel safer (I don't) but because it stirs old memories. Just now they went out, it's 6:30 am. It reminded me of those morning runs we used to get. The mornings are a fairly busy time of day. One of the reasons is people often don't wake up. A family member discovers their lifeless body in bed and calls 911 hoping what they think is happening isn't true.

I hate to say it but the positive side of finding 1099s (dept. code for dead) in the morning is they are usually stiff or their blood has pooled in the lowest part of their body, which means we don't have to do CPR because they've been dead too long. CPR isn't fun and it's not pretty. While your doing compressions or blowing oxygen into the patient all you can do until the paramedics get there is think and observe. It's one of the reasons I started saying a little prayer while doing CPR. You got nothing else to think about for a few minutes so why not say a prayer for this person? And I'm NOT a religious guy despite 12 years of Catholic education.

I've said that prayer at least a hundred times.