Blind Date

Part of the problem with working full time and going to school full time is juggling the time between the two. I took off ten days for finals and now is the payback for the remainder of 2004. But it is good being back just doing patient care. As probably everyone that works in the ER knows, there are cases that make the shift—I find they fall into the categories, “no one will believe this,” or “you just can’t make these things up.” Last night was one from the latter category.

Forty-four year old male arrives under CPR, head is deeply blue—never good. The paramedics report that he has been under CPR for 40 minutes (ventricular fibrillation and asystole)—so I called the resuscitation and pronounced him dead. He has no apparent ID and was waiting at a resturant alone. Shortly thereafter the fire captain arrives with his coat, wallet and cell phone. He’s from Modesto (about 60 miles south) and there are two numbers in his cell phone. We call the first number, and it is a woman he was meeting for dinner at the resturant on a blind date. She was still waiting, having arrived after the paramedics left. This is so sad, but there is an obvious joke here—you know your luck is bad, when even your blind date dies on you. We call the second phone number, it is his ex-wife. He lives with her and she had no idea why he was in Sacramento. It takes the family about 2 hours to get to the ER and the first thing the brother of the deceased says as he hands me a slip of paper is, “here’s why my brother died.” The paper had the word “Celebrex.”