Emergency! Read Online Free PDF

death.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” asked my friend Jorge.
    â€œMy grandfather is missing. He may have been involved in an accident. There is a John Doe at L.A. County. It could be him. I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
    Jorge drove me to the hospital. On our way there, I talked to him about Grandpa. He had come here at the age of ten with his mother and father. By seventeen he had begun working for Sunkist, and he stayed with them until he retired as a plant supervisor at sixty-five. He met my grandmother when they were youngsters working in the fields. Her father would not let him marry her until he had saved eight hundred dollars. They had children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. When I was admitted to medical school, he gave me tuition money from his savings. When I told him I would pay him back, he waved me off and said, “You will pay me back when you do the same for your children.”
    When we arrived at the Emergency Department, I introduced myself to the chief resident there, who told me about the John Doe as she walked me to the trauma room. “Elderly Hispanic male in traumatic full arrest with massive head injuries, multiple lower extremity and rib fractures. We got back a blood pressure but it’s shaky. Right now he’s comatose, has a blood pressure of sixty, two large-bore needles going full speed, two chest tubes, and a clean abdominal tap.”
    As we walked into the room, my eyes scanned the bruised, splinted, swollen legs and the exposed chest full of tubes and wires, still hoping that it might not be Grandpa. I looked up to see the face. The intubated, swollen, bloodied head with scant grayish hair took seconds to come into focus. I knew that this mangled John Doe was my grandfather. The resident’s voice became distant, and all I could hear were the rhythmic noise of the respirator, the beeps of the monitor, the shuffling sounds of people around him.
    My voice was tight as I talked to the resident and the attending physician.
    â€œI am afraid you have been much too skilled for my grandfather’s good. You have done a wonderful job, but if he goes into another cardiac arrest, please let him go. He is eighty-seven years old and has had a good life.”
    Grandpa died a few minutes later.
    I thanked the doctors and went to call my family. When I came back to see Grandpa, his body had been covered with a white sheet and moved aside. In his place there was another full arrest being worked on. John Doe number one was making way for John Doe number two.
    I did not want my family to see him here and in this way. I wanted a place of quiet and privacy for this final meeting.
    I asked the charge nurse if she could help. She told me how sorry she was and gave me a hug. Then she found an empty booth where my family could view Grandpa with some privacy. She helped me clean his bloody, battered body. She also called in a priest to give him the last rites. After seeing a thousand shattered families, she could still care.
    When Grandma arrived, she asked me,
“Cómo está mi esposo?”
(“How is my husband?”) I told her with a hoarse, whispering voice:
“Lo atropelló un carro y se murió, Abuelita.”
(“A car ran him over and killed him, Grandma.”) Her wrinkled face aged even more and she let out a long, sorrowful cry. I led her down to the booth where Grandpa’s body was waiting. She touched his face and said,
“Esta muy frío.”
(“He’s very cold.”) She was crying and kissed him. I lost my composure and hugged my mother and grandmother as we cried and cried. It was an emotional catharsis that as a doctor I never allow myself. In this grief I was able to retrieve some of the feeling that I had become insulated from in the role of physician.
    A priest came and gathered the family for prayers. A visible sense of calm came into Grandma’s face as we prayed together. After a short while, we took her home