Back from the Dead

My last weekend shift at Big City ED ended up being one of my most interesting. I was given a patient early in the day who was a chronic alcoholic and was having some GI bleeding. Her hematocrit was very low - low enough to get a super quick, non-crossmatched blood transfusion. So, I had two large bore IV's in her, had her on the cardiac monitor and was transfusing blood in the course of about 15 minutes after her arrival in the ED.

Things went from bad to worse. The patient ended up intubated, scoped, and then decided to code. We worked on her for 25 minutes and then ultrasounded her heart and had no cardiac activity. Her husband was in the room and the ED attending broke the news to him. As I was turning off pumps and trying to kind of get her a little more presentable, I looked down and SHE WAS BREATHING ON HER OWN!!! We had been changing the paper roll in the cardiac monitor and darn if she didn't pop up in a normal sinus rhythm. So basically after 25 mintues of CPR and meds, shocked 6 times and probably 2 minutes of doing nothing this woman came back to life! We got her to the ICU and she was hanging in there.

I went up to check on her three days later and she had been extubated and was up and reading a book. HOLY COW! Apparnetly no neuro damage (go CPR) and she was breathing on her own. Crazy.