City of the Dead

Chapter 2

As I walked towards the 'In Patient' ward, there was a commotion amongst the nurses. But I don't see Dr. Robinson anywhere amongst the chaos, most likely getting frisky with another nurse.

"Oh God! What have I done?!" says the same brunette haired nurse that Dr. Robinson was talking to earlier.

I start to stride my steps a little faster as I come up to the group of nurses and ask, "What's going on?"

The group of nurses then tried to talk to me all at once, I was so irritated that I raised my voice to say, " One at a time!"

After that outcry, the same brunette nurse started to cry and explain, "Dr. Robinson gave me instructions to give two units of Insulin to Mr. King, but then he complained about being dizzy and then passed out. I tried to wake him up, but he was so out of it that I laid him back in his bed."

I rushed to see Mr. King as he was indeed passed out. I grabbed the bottle that was on the treatment cart that the nurse pulled from and asked, "I'm going to need you to pull up the same amount that you gave to Mr. King here, can you do that?"

The nurse then grabbed a syringe and pulled what she thought to be two units of Insulin, when in reality, she had used a bigger syringe than the normal syringes that you were to use on Insulin patients. I quickly realized, the nurse gave more than two units of the Insulin needed, but gave fifteen to twenty units instead.

I turned towards Mr. King and under my breath said, "You overdosed him on Insulin..."

I quickly ran towards the crash cart and I yelled for a nurse to get Dr. Robinson. I then pulled up at least five milliliters of Dextrose and gave it to Mr. King, to at least buy us some time until Dr. Robinson gets here.

The brunette nurse then asked in distress, "What are you giving him?"

I then explained, "I'm giving Dextrose, it's simple sugar water, which in cases like this, should help bring up his sugar level. Insulin helps to maintain a diabetic's blood glucose, but if given too much, can drop the blood sugar so low that you can kill your patient. In order to try and reverse this, the patient needs to have any form of sugar in their system before they crash."

But who knows how long Mr. King was given Insulin, for all we know it could have been an hour and we would have been too late. If it wasn't for these circumstances, I would be furious with this woman, but since Insulin is so new to the market, it's only been practiced in U.S. medicine for the past couple of years. Even I get confused with how to properly dose insulin for a newly diagnosed diabetic patient, but this is just unacceptable for Dr. Robinson to not double check the nurse's doses.

After waiting for Dr. Robinson to arrive, I noticed Mr. King's breathing had stopped. I place my stethoscope on Mr. King's chest to only hear nothing but silence. At times like this, Dr. Robinson usually starts chest compressions, but alas, I am the only one, other than that brunette nurse panicking in the corner of the room. I have to make a decision, and fast.

Without even thinking, I pulled up five milliliters of epinephrine and grabbed the nurse from the corner and gave her the syringe, "I'm going to need you to give this to Mr. King in his cephalic vein, right here," as I guided the nurse to Mr. King's inner forearm to show where she was going to give the injection. "I'm going to start chest compressions."

I pulled my hair away from my face with my scarf as the brunette nurse gave the epinephrine and I started giving chest compressions. I put all my might into my first compression as I have to break Mr. King's sternum. I felt the break of the bone from under my palm, then I got into the rhythm of giving one compression per second. By the time I had done 30 compressions, my face was then flushed red and felt hot. I thought to myself, how does Dr. Robinson do this for two minutes straight?