help!

OMG! I’m the one who needs to be resuscitated!

I get to my late afternoon shift and things are already outta control! Sunday Night Special! Patients wall-to-wall. No available beds. Missing wheelchairs, codes blasting on the PA, screamie-meemies, chest pains.  Anthony Chan’s being a bigger-than-normal pain in the ass —

VOLUNTEER, what part of “limping” do you not understand? Get my patient a wheelchair, stat!

I check the hallways, L & D, parking lots – nada, nowhere, now what?

I’ve gotta return with wheels pronto, so I head into unfamiliar territory, open a daunting door with a “Staff Only” sign and step into a brightly lit waiting area, where I discover:

Two Empty Wheelchairs!  Voila! Yay! Perfect!

Uhm… WAIT!  What’s that abandoned patient doing lying on that gurney?

YIKES! He/She/It is NOT Breathing!!!

“It” has some apparatus over its face, a surgical hairnetty thing on its head and a blanket over its body (not over its face, so that’s a good sign, right?) I’m way too creeped-out to get close, obvi! My eyes dart side-to-side desperately searching for a medical professional of any kind — I’ll even take an EVS cleaner-upper – anyone who might know what the hell is going on.

A mysterious elevator door near the dead body worries me. I’m not sure where it goes and I don’t want to find out.

Pulse racing, I rush back to the ER, retracing my steps. Anthony Chan finishes triaging a patient when I whisper —

Excuse me, but I-just-saw-a patient-who-might-be-dead-can-you-please-take-my-pulse?

I manage to get my “what, where, when” out, when Anthony Chan fake smiles —

Nurse Barbie, I believe you’ve found Suri.

“Suri Cruise?” I don’t think so — “It” looked like a man!

Our Teaching Dummy (Dummy), now where’s that wheelchair?!

Soooo embarrassing. More ammo for Briana who continually makes sure I’m the never-ending ER Volunteer joke. I may never live it down, but the Suri saga is the kind of thing my Mom would’ve laughed with me about afterwards (if she were around).

Looking at the good side, at least Dr. A was off tonight (yay!) — and, thank goodness Suri didn’t suffer. Ahaha!