A Thousand Naked Strangers - Kevin Hazzard Page 0,25

but her open and milky eyes never flicker.

Now for the muumuu. Her clothes have to be removed for us to slap on the paddles, but there’s no way to get through such a large and billowing piece of fabric. It’s all wound up and tangled like a wet parachute, and we struggle with it for a few seconds before someone cuts a four-inch slit down the center. Chris grabs one side, I grab the other, and we yank. It splits open to below her belly button, just low enough for us to learn that Grandma doesn’t wear underwear. Chris flicks on the monitor, grabs the paddles, and places them on her chest—left hand over the breastplate, right along the ribs just below her heart. We all turn to the monitor and see the flowing V-shaped waves of a heart fluttering but not beating. Chris charges up the monitor.

This has a distinct sound, a high-pitched bing that mellows into a whine and culminates in a series of beeps—dee-doo-dee-doo-dee-doo, doot-doot—signifying the charge is ready. Chris yells clear. We all hold our hands up, and POP! Her body hops off the floor, back arching, head flopping. The monitor shows a brief run of the long, flat line that indicates the heart is no longer even quivering. Then, slowly, the V-shaped waves return. Chris increases the energy setting, recharges the monitor, yells clear, and POP. Another jerk. Another flat stretch of nothingness, then the waves return. Again he ups the energy setting. Again he charges the paddles. Again he yells clear and shocks her. Still no change.

A firefighter drops to his knees and begins CPR—a traumatic, almost obscene assault on the body. Two hands over the breastplate, arms locked, an unending string of compressions delivered with the full force of a grown man. The breastplate quickly breaks free from the ribs; the connecting cartilage snaps with each compression and makes a percussive pop like thick ice breaking deep below the surface. Chris reaches into the jump bag and pulls out the airway kit. I shuffle along on my knees and take hold of Grandma’s hand. It’s time for an IV.

There’s never been any proof that drugs actually help patients in cardiac arrest, but still we give them. Call it better dying through pharmaceuticals. There’s epinephrine, which hits the heart like a brushfire, a frantic and hysterical scream for it to do something, anything. Behind it, playing the role of good cop, is amiodarone. It eases in gentle as bathwater, a calming voice to whisper that everything will be all right. They simultaneously alert and reassure the heart: Just follow us and everything will be okay.

I straighten out Grandma’s arm but can’t find a vein. The thing about someone in arrest is, basically, she’s dead. There’s no blood flowing, so the veins are flat and hard to find. I wrap a tourniquet around her upper arm, swab the area with alcohol, and, seeing nothing, plunge the needle in. Tissue that isn’t getting blood has the consistency of Play-Doh. The patient is, after all, just an official time of death away from being a cadaver. I keep digging, but before I can find anything, Chris waves me over.

He has the airway kit open and half the tools out—syringes and tubes and tape and blades—in a big jumbled mess around him. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and says something isn’t right. He’s having trouble seeing down into Grandma’s airway. Something’s in there. I ask if he wants to try the suction, and he nods. “Yeah, let’s give it a shot.”

This is one of those moments when the reality of trying to save lives on an ambulance hits home. We don’t have fancy battery-powered suction units like the hospitals do. What we have is a piece of hollow plastic—long skinny tip on one end, accordion in the middle, trigger on the handle. If Chris squeezes fast enough and long enough, it may create enough suction. We’re skeptical. Chris starts squeezing the trigger, working the accordion in and out—fffii-fffoo fffii-fffoo. He’s not getting anything out, but he keeps going—fffiffi-fffoo fffii-fffoo fffii-fffoo. Now the family’s watching and whispering—What the hell is that noise? Fffiffi-fffoo fffii-fffoo fffii-fffoo.

Chris is in a full-on sweat when it works. He’s shocked, I’m shocked. He pulls the suction out, and there, wedged into the hollow tip, is an entire floret of broccoli. The stem is stamped with a single set of teeth marks. “You gotta be shitting me,” Chris whispers. We