Dinner on the Table at 6

I love to watch all the medical shows on TV like Mystery Diagnosis, Trauma in the ER, etc. As an RN I have worked in many hospitals but never a big urban trauma center like you see on most of these TV shows. They are so busy with critical patients coming in one after the other. I have been in an ER as a patient only twice for minor injuries....a broken toe after encountering a coffee table in the middle of the night and a lacerated heel while attempting to kickstart my motorcycle. Yes....June Cleaver use to be a motorbiking mama! Mostly slow paced ERs with your usual coughs, abdominal pains, broken arms and chronic pain.
Two weeks ago I ended up in the ER in Waco. Waco is just a mid size town but has a new 1 year old hospital with a trauma level ER consisting of 40 beds. Because I had a cardiac emergency I got to bypass waiting in the ER lobby for hours and was ushered back to one of the 6 trauma rooms. Being a Friday night, the ER was full and very busy. After an hour I felt like I was in the mist of what you see in TV ERs. The trauma rooms see lots of action and it was all happening in the 5 rooms surrounding me and I was seeing it all from trauma room #3. The stretchers with vehicle accident patients came one after the other. Many escorted by a city policeman or sheriff because they were alcohol or drug related. My husband brought to my attention one patient being walked down the corridor in shackles attended by a sheriff.
Because the trauma rooms are separated by glass you could hear what was going on next door in room #4. It was a busy room that Friday night and what I heard coming from that room over the next 6 hours was heartbreaking. Two episodes were most disturbing. A 22 year old male in a car accident had multiple fractures and bleeding in the brain. He was yelling out in pain and calling for his mother. After intubating him and stablizing him he was life-flighted out to a higher level trauma center 30 minutes away. The cries of his mother was heart-wrenching. Just a few minutes later a stretcher rolls by surrounded by paramedics giving CPR to a man no older than my husband. I could see the hustle and bustle of feet below the curtain and hear the urgency in the voices of the ER staff through the glass walls.
"How long has he been down? When did you get a pulse last? 4:20...It's 4:40 now...that's 20 minutes since you got the last pulse? Yes that is correct."
After 15 minutes the room became quiet and the staff quietly left the room and I lay there as the light was turned off in room #4. The next sounds I heard from the room were the soft cries of a grieving wife, mother and other family members brought in to say their final good-byes. As they left the room and walked past my door, I was overcome with grief for a family I never met.
While waiting to be admitted to a room upstairs, the flow of patients never slowed and I lay there thinking about all the lives that were affected in some way that Friday night in the ER. Lives affected by consequences brought on by alcohol, drugs, reckless driving, crime, disease or illness.
Lives that cease to exist, lives that are physically or mentally changed forever, lives that will endure criminal punishment or mental anguish, lives that will grieve for loved ones......Lives changed forever on a friday night in a real-life ER.