How Would You Want Your Fatal Cardiac Arrest To Happen Be Played Out Before Time Is Called

how would you want your Fatal cardiac arrest to happen be played out before time is called

The EMTs rush over to me and start assessing me immediately. They pull my pink shirt up past my breasts exposing my c cup breasts covered by a solid black sports bra. They put a blood pressure cuff on my arm and check my heart with a stethoscope directly on my partially exposed chest. Electrodes are placed around my bra in order to show my heart rate on the monitor.

“She’s gonna crash any second” the man says as my heartbeat shows up on the monitor. “Let’s prepare to breathe for her and get the pa… SHIT! she’s crashing! Starting compressions!” His hands are between my breasts in an instant. The other one, a woman, takes the scissors and snips my bra away then snips my shirt a quarter of the way before she rips it in half to fully expose my chest.

I lay there on the gym floor, next to the stair master, with people standing around me watching this scene unfold quickly. Some are crying with horror while others watch frozen and fascinated. My best friend is crouched down by my feet holding my shins screaming “Kennedy, wake up! Please for the love of God stay with me”

The EMT giving compressions presses down so hard one of my ribs instantly pops and is audible to the crowd. One woman in the crowd lets out a small scream at the noise. I feel blood flowing through me as his hands go deep into my sternum which presses my wiggling heart. The third one holds a plastic mask on my face and squeezes a bag sending plastic tasting air down my throat past my blueing lips. My eyes, partly open still, stare up at him as the woman injects drugs into my arm which get pumped around by the other man’s large hands.

They all stop for a moment to check the monitor and see my heart is in v fib. The woman takes the paddles and places them on my now bare chest, careful not to interfere with the leads to the monitor, and yells “Shocking! Clear!” All hands leave my body including at my legs. My chest jumps slightly and lands back down with a quiet thump. My breasts barely react to the impact. “Shocking again! Clear!” The dose of electricity is higher this time and I land with a louder, more aggressive thump. My breasts visibly move as I hit the ground this time. I hear crying coming from the area of my feet.

Hands are back on my chest, the woman’s this time. They are softer but go even deeper into my chest. Her fingers lightly graze my erect nipple as her fingers reach across my breast as the heels of her palms push on my sternum causing more popping from my ribs. More air is pushed down my throat against my will and more drugs injected into my body as my heart rate stays at zero when they stop to do another pulse check. My head rolls to the side, my mouth partly open, my eyes empty.

“Another round of epi!” Says the woman doing compressions. I feel the burning the medication as it enters my blood stream as the third EMT pushes down on my chest, now bruised and battered. My heart starts to feel a shivering sensation going through it as the monitor reads v fib again. “Shocking at 360! Clear! … No change. Shocking again! Clear!” Each time my whole body contracts and I land dramatically in the ground, breasts bouncing and head rolling sideways.

“Shit....Flatline!”

I hear the continued cries at my feet as someone begs me to stay with her. But the sound is just vibrations going through my ear canal and hitting my brain. Almost meaningless at this point. And I feel no desire to stay. In fact I feel nothing except the physical sensations. My brain has begun to die even more as I am deprived of a self regulated pulse for more than fifteen minutes.

“Let’s check her pupils” suggests the one who has just read the monitor showing I’m in asystole again. The one in charge of the mask removes it from my face and flashes a flashlight in my eyes. “Pupils are blown… we should call it in and get time of death…” another minute or two of compressions go on and nothing else- no mask, no shocks, no drugs, until finally “Time of death 1142 am. Let’s get a sheet over her and call the coroner…”

My friend never lets go of me as she cries begging the medics to keep working, the crowd around me protests their cessation of care, but the medics close my eyes before placing the white sheet over me.