I couldn't bring myself to save him....

Many of us joke around with the title "paragod" instead of paramedic. Obviously there is no truth to that. Most of the people who call us don't need us. Those who do, there are pretty cut and dry standards and procedures of what to do. The chances we take are when a procedure could cause more harm than good. However we are covered because we were following a protocol. There are a very few patients were we are really truly in charge of if they live or die. I let one die today,
Truth be told he was already dead. For how long I do not know. I walked in the room and recognized him instantly. He was a frail man with more things wrong with him than right, He was wheelchair bound and cried in pain anytime we touched him. Everyone dreaded going on him because you could not treat him without hurting him. His health had been declining for years. His friend was there yelling for us to save him.  He had not been seen since the night before. In order to survive CPR needs to be done within minutes of death.

The first thing I do on any possible dead body call is grab their arm. You learn a lot with the simple grabbing of a wrist and raising it above a persons head. Skin temperature. If it's cold, he is dead. Rigor mortis, he is dead. Lividity, (discolored skin where the person is contacting the floor, bed etc.) dead. He had none of these. Many people with this many health problems and a poor quality of life have a DNR or Do Not Resuscitate order. His freind said he didn't and to do anything.

I quickly cut his shirt off and place the defibrillator pads. As the monitor turns on I place my hands on his chest and prepare to start CPR. His ribs are protruding so badly it seems as though they may pop through his skin. I remove my hands and check again for a pulse. I look at his eyes. Fixed, dialated. Dead. I poise my hands again, shuddering inside thinking of the crunches, pops and damage I am about to inflict on his person. I cannot do it. The heart monitor shows Aystole. No heart movement. Flat line. Despite what TV says you cannot shock that. I poise my hands one more time.

"Check his back for lividity," my partner offers, sensing my hesitation and feeling the same way. To do CPR on someone as frail as him seems like cruelty. We roll him to his side and look, strain to see some discoloration. Perhaps it was dents from the fabric he lay on. Perhaps it was the beginning of lividity. Whatever it was, I called it. "I'm sorry," I tell his friend. "We cannot save him."

The truth is, I did not want to.