The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [44]
He raced to the doorway. “Code Ninety-nine four-twelve,” he screamed down the deserted corridor. “Code Ninety-nine four-twelve.” He ran back inside and resumed his one-man resuscitation.
Thirty seconds passed in what seemed like a year before Winnie Edgerly burst into the room pushing the emergency crash cart. At the same instant the page operator, alerted from the nurses’ station, announced, “Code Ninety-nine, Four South. Code Ninety-nine, Four South. Code Ninety-nine, Four South.”
Seconds later, Room 412 began to fill with people and machines. Edgerly inserted a short oral airway into Charlotte’s mouth and began providing respirations as best she could with a breathing bag. David continued the external cardiac compression. An aide rushed in, then wandered meekly to one side of the room, waiting for someone to tell her what to do. Two more nurses raced in, followed by Christine, pushing an electrocardiograph machine. Leads from the machine were strapped tightly to Charlotte’s wrists and ankles.
A resident appeared, then another, and finally the anesthesiologist, a huge Oriental who introduced himself as Dr. Kim. He replaced Edgerly at the head of the bed and looked over at David, who had turned the job of cardiac massage over to one of the residents and had moved to man the cardiograph.
“Tube her?” Dr. Kim asked. David nodded his answer.
As the room filled with still more people, including the inhalation and laboratory technicians, Kim set about his task. He picked up a steel laryngoscope and inserted its right-angle, lighted blade deeply into Charlotte’s throat, lifting up against the base of her tongue to expose the delicate silver half-moons of her vocal cords.
“Give me a seven-point-five tube,” he said to the nurse assisting at his side. The clear plastic tube, with a diameter of three quarters of an inch, had a deflated plastic balloon wrapped just above the tip. Skillfully, the giant slipped the tube between Charlotte’s vocal cords and down into her trachea. He used a syringe to blow up the balloon, sealing the area around the tube against air leaks. Next he attached the black Ambu breathing bag to the outside end of the tube, connected oxygen to the bag, and began supplying Charlotte with breaths at a rate of thirty per minute.
Christine stood just to David’s right and watched as he tried to center the needle on the cardiograph. All at once, her eyes riveted on the slashing up-and-down strokes of the stylus. There was a rhythm—a persistent, regular rhythm. Oh, my God, he’s bringing her back! Her thoughts screamed the words. The one possibility she had never considered, and now it was happening. With every beat a new horrifying image occurred to her. Charlotte, hooked to a respirator. More tubes. Day upon endless day of wondering if the woman’s oxygen-deprived brain would awaken. What had she done?
The finely lined paper flowed from the machine like lava, forming a jumbled pile at David’s feet. The rhythmic bursts continued.
“Hold it for a second!” David called for the resident to halt his thrusting cardiac compressions in order to get a true reading from the machine.
Instantly the pulsing jumps of the needle disappeared, replaced by only a fine quiver. The pattern had been artificial—a response to the efforts of the resident.
Christine had misinterpreted the cardiograph. She felt near collapse.
“Her rhythm looks like fine fibrillation. Please resume pumping.” David’s voice was firm but calm. Christine sensed a measure of control return. “Christine, please get set to give her four hundred joules.”
The order registered slowly. Too slowly.
“Miss Beall!” David snapped the words.
“Oh, yes, Doctor. Right away.” Christine rushed to the defibrillator machine. Was everyone staring at