The case of the Shouted Deathbed requests

It was a Tuesday night and I was working all night at a local emergency room. It was a job I dearly loved. So much emotion went along with the hours spent there. There was laughter, sadness, horror, heart break, insanity, and enough compassion to last a lifetime.

This night I would meet a person and experience something I never could have dreamed or expected to happen in my life.  Memories from this shift  repeat themselves in my mind at times and each time it does, the goose bumps pop up and the hair on my neck stands up just as it did on that night years ago.

He was in his mid fifties and an ambulance brought him in close to midnight that night. He was in the midst of a heart attack and he was alone. His family had left for a trip two days earlier as he had remained at home to complete a project for his employer. It was a huge project that had monopolized his time now for months. Soon it would be complete but he could not afford to abandon the project to join his family for the trip.

When he first came in and was settled into our chest pain center in the emergency room, he was very anxious but he began to calm down a little. 

I walked in to ask him a couple of questions for our records and he seemed to be in deep thought as he popped out the answers to my questions. We spoke for a little while as he seemed so eager to talk to someone. He was telling me of his life and about his family and it was clear he wanted me, or someone, or anyone to know his story. He looked reasonably comfortable as he spoke of his wife and teenage son and daughter. His halting breath was concerning but he was pushing through it.

Suddenly, he shouted “Write this down, write it down NOW!”

“Tell my wife (Anna)”

“My records are in the safe in my bedroom. Look in the blue briefcase for the updated insurance papers. Sell the house, buy Julie that car she wanted. Look after mom. Don’t be sad Anna. Please forgive me!”

“Tell mom that I love her and she was a great mother!”

“Tell Julie, that daddy’s proud of her and his love will always be with her!”

"Tell Joey he's now the man and I need him to....."

That was the end of the shouts, he seemed to completely run out of gas. He went from 80 miles per hour to zero in an instant.

This patient was dead within 10 minutes of his screamed orders. It was difficult to  write but I wrote furiously to get it all down. I will never forget the fear and regret in his face. It was enormously disturbing.

Everyone in that room was shocked. Those working feverishly to save this patient, had heard every word just  before they performed chest compressions. Then one of the nurses noticed on this man’s chart that he had requested DNR (Do Not Resusitate). After his heart bypass surgery a few years earlier and his subsequent heart attacks, he had elected to not go through the process of intubation and prolonging the inevitable.  

As he laid there he looked so young to me. His light had burned out and there was no changing that. I did not know him, yet I felt deeply connected to him in that moment as I held those instructions I had scribbled in haste for this dying man.

This was an experience that was unique. We heard a man in a panic who tried to say what he could before his last breath, and last heart beat. It was eerie and it was deeply moving. I only knew this man for minutes but he effected me and he taught me. I saw first hand how it looks and feels when your life is over and you suddenly have so many regrets.