Insomniacs (#1)

73. her love

"1 milligram of epi!"

"This is our third attempt at defibrillation. Shouldn't we start for the Lidocaine?" Another paramedic insists, his urgency clear.

"Push 1.5." The order calls out and the liquid is injected through the IV, right into the boy barely breathing. Another pushes down on his chest, compressing to a steady rhythm.

The ambulance blares through the night, swerving through the highway that is paving a way for them as they whiz by. The blue and red lights illuminate the dark, flashing with the urgency that the paramedics likewise feel.

One reaches for the defibrillator and charges it up, "Clear!"

The two metal pads press to his chest and as the shock rocks through him, the boy jolts in place. A moment of heavy silence passes as all the paramedic's gazes eagerly snap to the monitor in unison. No change.

And the silence dies, the compressions continuing as they switch out. Doing everything they can to restart this boys heart.

The ambulance swerves to a stop in front of the ER doors and the driver rushes to get out, pulling open the back doors. Lifting the sides of the stretcher, they all work like a flowing machine as they rush him down and into the open doors of the hospital.

In expectance, the nurses reach him and the paramedics roll a summary, "John Doe, a neighbour started chest compressions once finding him unconscious and not breathing. No physical injuries, cardiac arrest."

"Medication?" A doctor asks calmly as they rush through the open hallways.

"Administered three doses of epinephrine, first of lidocaine four minutes ago. No change in sats before or after defibrillation." A paramedic answers as they get into a room, snapping down the barriers of the ambulance bed and in unison, lift him onto a hospital bed.

The lead doctor takes over the chest compressions, examining the boy beneath. His lips twinged with a shade of blue, skin white and eyes shut. Nurses and doctors crowd around the boy in a hectic rush to get him back to life. It's all noise, orders being called out amongst the nurses and doctors, clatter as they ready IV's.

The paramedics had spent nine minutes trying to resuscitate him, with no avail. With every minute that passes of CPR, the risk rises of permanent brain damage. Blood is not getting to his heart, to his brain. The risk becomes detrimental with every passing second that they'll lose him.

"Someone find out his name!" The lead doctor grunts out as he pushes on his chest, knowing it's likely a rib will soon be broken. The nurses rush to rifle through the jacket the paramedic had torn up. Cigarettes, a polaroid drifts down to the cold floor of the hospital floor, a wallet. They flip open the wallet and call out once they find his drivers licence, "Ezekiel Luca Hernandez. 18."

"Come on, kid. Come on, you got a whole lotta years to live out." The doctor chants as a nurse begins to bag him, the mask covering his mouth.

The monitors show no signs as the doctor lifts his head under his hair that had fallen over his forehead from the exertion, checking for a pulse. Nothing.

"Come on, come on." He works harder, willing it into his hands, not allowing this young boy to die under his watch.

The doctors hands had become numb, his breathing ragged after another endless four minutes of resuscitation, so he switched out with another doctor for the moment.