If I Needed Someone

Working in the critical care area the other night, I had just finished drawing a set of blood cultures when I heard the resident cry for help from behind a curtain.  Running over with one of the nurses, we found her alone, gowned and masked standing over a patient draped in a sterile field, midway through inserting a central line on a septic older woman.  Monitor showed a heart rate in the 30s, and the patient had suddenly stopped breathing.  Stuck with the gidewire still sticking out of the patient's neck, the resident rushed to complete the procedure while the rest of us moved in to help.

It happened to be a night when I was lucky enough to be working with the A-Team.  In what felt like an hour, but documentation later proved to be a total of five minutes, the resident finished the line, I bagged the patient, nurses grabbed and pushed a couple rounds of meds, the secretary paged respiratory, the patient got tubed and her heart rate and O2 sat started climbing up to happier numbers.  

It's amazing to see how smoothly a serious situation can go when you've got a great team that's used to working with each other.  I definitely have my Fantasy ER team lined up if I'm ever a patient.