Welcome to the city.
I'm going to take a stab at deciphering this.
I think he was trying to be friendly, not condescending, but maybe I'm just reading it with a different shade of sunglasses (the writing is indeed poor). I think what he meant was first, "congratulations on the good call, and performing good patient care", then second, "We are all human. I've had 12 *years* of continuous patient care (at various levels) and never had that happen, which makes that even more impressive".
And then I think he was asking for a history, because he thought this was a scenario....but I'm being hopeful. Obviously a complete Hx gets put on the backburner when you haven't passed the 'C' of the ABC's.
I'm not ashamed to admit, I've struggled to find carotid pulses on people who I knew were alive. And I wouldn't be ashamed if I couldn't find one on someone who I thought was dead, either. I hope that nobody thinks that makes me a poorer practitioner, but if so I'd remind them that it's only when we acknowledge our shortcomings that we can truly improve upon them.
This sounds like a fun call, did you get to bust out Mobey's Magills?