My First Dead Body - A New Nurse's Perspective

I had only logged in 13 hours before I experienced death in the Emergency Department.

It was halfway through my second shift when Rescue 3 called in a full arrest. It had been exceptionally quiet all morning. Jose said snowstorms keep the crazies and the hypochondriacs home. He said, "Only the sick of the sick come out in this weather."

We gather in the room to wait. Every one looking across at each other, silently shifting in place. Someone cracks a joke as a sort of tension reliever and a few brave people giggle. And then in the distance, you hear the sirens go silent and you know they are almost here and within seconds, doors are slamming open and voices are getting louder and wheels are rattling and you hear a thud squeak thud squeak and it isn't until they round the corner that you realize the thud squeak is the sound of a Paramedic performing CPR....halfheartedly. Because she was a goner from the get go but he needed the doc to make the call. Everyone is talking at once but they all seem to hear only the voice that shares the information they need to know. CPR stops and everyone clears the bed as the monitor leads are read one by one. Just to be sure. Asystole. Goodbye. Goodnight.

And suddenly everyone is gone except me and 2 other nurses. And I am pulling off her urine soaked underwear and dirty white socks. I'm trying to cover up the body bag lying beneath her so her family doesn't see it. I'm picking snot off her nose and wiping vomit off her cheeks and neck. I'm trying to do it as lovingly as possible because that is what they taught me in nursing school. And I notice her face looks puffy, as if it exploded into itself. Like her soul decided to leave this world right through the center of her face. It looks like death hurts even though people tell me its peaceful. The other 2 nurses leave and I look over her body one last time. I turn the lights off so only the soft grey glow from the wintry windows illuminate the room. I pull the curtain closed. Goodbye. Goodnight.

I glance at my coworkers gathered at the nurses station. They are talking about the patient in the next room, the one with the chest pain, the one with the pelvic pain, the one with the runny nose. Someone is calling the Coroner and someone next to her is talking to her daughter about the snowman they plan to make after shift. I round the corner to the break room and I sit down. I click on the Winter Olympics and eat my bowl of soup. Seafood bisque because it's Friday. And it's Lent. And life goes on.