The man who drank too much

BEEP ! BEEP ! BEEP !

What aa... what's dat? Silent. Darkness.

BEEP! BEEP! That sound again....

whadda .. where am I .... oh it's the holy

pager -- #5658.

Reaching in the dark I almost knocked the phone over. Bugger.

"Yaa, who's thiiiss.. " My voice hoarsen due to gallon of Nestea's green tea.

"Hey u gotta come to ER stat! I got a guy here who almost drowned himself by drinking too much water, and i can't intubate him " a desperate female voice echoed on the other line.

I knew the voice, one of my close buddy in the emergency room got herself in a shitty position, and unless u're in a ER's toilet, that's never a good thing.

"Gimme 2 secs, I'll be der.... watever u do make sure u can ventilate him !" reminding her what she already knew.

A 100m dashed to the ER at 2am was never recognised as an extreme sport, i wonder why but 2 shakes of a lamb's tail later I arrived at the crime scene and only to find it as bloody as a battle-field.

"The tube just won't go in" Linda's voice shaken, i could almost see the agony of frustration in her light brown eyes.

BP 75/40....Pulse rate 30/m - someone yelled in the background

"Start CPR! 1 mg adrenaline & 1 mg atropine IV bolus" my voice widely awake now while positioning myself at the patient's head relieving Linda.

I snapped open the laryngoscope blade and shoved it into the man's throat, hunting for his vocal cord - but the view was obscured by a litre of his own frothy tracheal secretion.

"Suctionnn pleasse" PSSRRRRFTTTTTTT !!! The yonker suction made a screaming noise while suctioning a 1/4 litre of secretion resulting in a clear view of Mr Vocal cord.

Thank God it's a Cormack Lehane I and with a bit of magic from cricoid pressure that Linda gave.. steady steady... my right hand maneuvered the ETT tube and gently tuck it home beyond the cord.

"He's in V. tachy... no pulse" She yellled.

I grabbed the defib paddle, charged it to 150 Joule... "CHARGEED! CLEAR !"

*ZAPPPPP!!!* -- no response --

CPR continued with multiple boluses of adrenaline.

"He's in V. Fib". "CHARGED! CLEAR !"

-- no response --

"agaiin" No movement. Flatline.

It's been 40 mins. His pupils were fixed and dilated, no spontaneous breathing, BP unrecordable. Pulseless. We decided to call it.

"Time of death 02:44" .

Linda broke the bad news to the family.

Silent. Followed by anguished cries from his loved ones.

Apparently, this 30y old guy overdosed himself with illegal drugs 3 weeks ago resulted in liver and kidney failure. He was treated for 2 weeks and was discharged well a couple of days ago.

However, despite advice from his doc he overloaded himself with water up to a point where his recuperating kidneys can't take it anymore and he went into acute pulmonary oedema (wet lungs) as if he had jumped into a river and drowned himself.

The first attempt was not a cry for help after all.

*gambar hiasan*