First Rural Cardiac Arrest...

[Asysin2leads]

I could be really cynical and answer your question with "availability of ICU beds, and emotional and financial toll on the family" in terms of why not to work him. I hope he was insured, at least.

[Dustdevil]

You have to look at several things when you decide whether or not to cease (or even start) treatment.

No you don't. The forum rules say do not revive old dead threads. What other factors could possibly make a difference?

[JPINFV]

Give him a break... he wanted to give it every possible chance to live. Threads were made to be posted in and now he can leave it up to a mod to lock and and say it's done

Actually, to be specific, I didn't bump the thread. firefighter523 did two posts before me. I just made note of it in my post.

[Asysin2leads]

All right, I'm calling. This thread is gone, time of death 1847 hours.

[iMac]

Working rural can be rough. The last dead body I had while on call, I can still remember clearly. It came in in the middle of the night initially as a unconscious/Fainting which was changed to a "life status questionable" right before we got on scene which took 35+mins. We arrived on scene ready to work a code. As it turned out, the patient had been for a while. Lividity present but because of the environment the pt was in, the body was warm. The pt looked peacful, almost as if he/she was only sleeping.

I will always remember what it fel like.

Even tho I knew in a way she had been dead for a long time long enough to cause lividity, I felt guilty for taking as long as I took to get to them. I felt guilty for not being able to attempt to provide care, I felt at fault that maybe I could have done something. (I knew in this case it would have not made a difference, but I had to learn to deal with it). It's rough sometimes to not feel guilty and realise you do what you can.

We are only human

[Ridryder 911]

Wow! Just when you thought a post was dead, just to show we will try resurrect anything.

First, it is their emergency NOT yours! Coding a patient that is known anoxic and has been down an extent period of time without cerebral resuscitation is futile, and as well known to not to have a positive outcome. This could be considered unethical and even delivery of poor care. Placing a patient in such situation to be resuscitated with brain damage and then to have that patient slowly go into organ failure is inconsiderate. As well, as placing numerous large amount of financial burden and potential psychological trauma to the family... way to go!

What we do or not do... has long term effects, that we are not always aware of. Are we attempting to save the patients for their behalf or..... ours ?

R/r 911

[Timmy]

What gets me is if someone started a new post about the same subject or related in some way then they would be yelled at and people would post links to old threads??