Death of a Child

I gazed into his lifeless eyes as everyone in the room stood there staring at me, waiting for me to do something. He couldn't have been older than 12 years of age, just laying there peacefully in his bed. As I checked for a pulse and looked for signs of life, I confirmed the obvious, he was dead. My partner and I begin CPR as the family begins to cry and scream. While doing chest compression's I ask when the last time anyone saw the boy alive was, someone shouted out "15 minutes ago." This seemed to match the presentation of the boy, as body heat was still radiating off him. While doing CPR we connect him to our cardiac monitor and pause for a moment, I nervously turn my eyes towards the display on the cardiac monitor and my worst fears are confirmed, it shows flat line (asystole). This heart rhythm can not be shocked and in 10 years, Iv'e never brought anyone back from it. Despite the odd's, I do my job and go through the motions while trying to show the family we are doing everything we can. His mom is hysterical, crying and screaming as another family member escorts her out of the room while we begin using different equipment on her son, attempting to bring him back. Were only 5 minutes from the hospital and I make the decision to transport him to the emergency department. We put him on our stretcher and continue CPR but he lives on the 5th floor, the elevator is to small for our stretcher. In a incredibly nerve racking version of the game twister, we manage to squeeze him in the elevator while continuing chest compression's and ventilation's. He's loaded into the ambulance and our driver peels out. Its a challenge to continue working on the boy as the ambulance hits break neck speeds, running red lights and burning rubber with every turn, but we make it. We bring him in and hand the boy over to the doctor, the hospital team takes over and after giving our report I step outside to get some fresh air and wash up. The family eventually arrive and wait outside the room. I know the boy's not coming back, and I know they will remember this moment, and me, for the rest of their lives. I go up to them and thank them for calling us, and tell them the hospitals going to do everything they can, I wish them goodluck and I get ready to go back in service for my next call and finish my report. However, before I leave the emergency room I step into the boy's room just to check on the situation, to my complete disbelief, the doctor got a pulse back on the boy. Its the first time in my career I have ever seen it happen in this situation. There's no saying if the boy will make a full recovery or not, but it made me feel good to see they at least got a pulse back.