Hospital Horror

One night of call, I had a memorable and disturbing experience. We got an overhead page “trauma team, STAT to the trauma room” which either means that the pagers aren’t working or there is something really bad. Unfortunately, it was something awful. As I walked into the trauma room, I saw the stretcher from the ambulance filled with blood right by the head of the bed. Not a good sign. I get in there and it was a 20 year old boy who was shot in the head. He had an entrance wound in his left side of his forehead with brain spilling out of the hole. Not good.

He was not breathing, had no blood pressure, but had a pulse. He was intubated and we shot a lateral x-ray of his skull which showed the bulled lodged in his brain with fragments of bone and a huge linear skull fracture. We pronounced him dead right after that. However, then we told the family and needless to say they did not take it well. The father came and identified the body. I could not really tell what his emotions were because his face was just a blank stare. However, his sister exploded with emotion in the emergency room and started screaming and crying. Then she came into the room and was uncontrollably hysterical lying over her brother’s bloody dead body. She kept screaming asking questions about if he’s brain dead or not. She was in agony, and I stood there helpless and numb and continued to fill out the paperwork on the trauma we ran on her brother. This residency has made me quite thick skinned to horrific diseases, traumas, and psychological tragedies that the human body experiences but that moment will stick with me forever.

Well, got to get to sleep now so I can finish up my last Friday-Sunday call at this hospital.