Code Blue Incoming Short Story

It was an ordinary, quiet summer day in the Emergency department when over the hospital wide intercom, I heard “CODE BLUE INCOMING! CODE BLUE INCOMING!” Before the announcement was even over I saw nurses from all areas running towards the ED in a panic. I picked up my clip board and bolted for the doors. As I ran through those doors to the ED that day I prayed to god, “please don’t be a child,” as I always do. Code blue incoming means that there is a person who is in cardiac arrest arriving by ambulance. I am an Admissions Representative so it’s my job to obtain a patient’s information and get it into the computer so the nurses can start their job. I have encountered my fair share of code blues working for Freeman Neosho Hospital but the

It had been a rough couple of weeks for our hospital. Just the week before this day two grown men had been pinned under the currents of a local river and drowned. It felt like hours standing there waiting in dismay for the ambulance to arrive. When we finally heard the blaring sound of the truck backing up we scurried to our places, ready to go. It’s such a surreal feeling to see someone trying to be resuscitated. Paramedics pressing with all their strength on a lifeless chest while pumping air into the patient’s lungs for any chance of a heartbeat. As they were pushing the patient into room 103 they threw me a demographic sheet. It took me a second to come back to reality after seeing the limp, bluish-white, body of a young boy. In that moment I was frozen with heartache and disbelief but I knew I had a job to get done. I ran back out to my desk, unlocked my computer, and got the boys’ information into the system. The demographic sheet read that the boy was only twelve years old. My heart sank remembering the doctor saying “even if we get a heartbeat he will be completely brain dead after being trapped under water for so long”. As I was printing his name bracelet an older gentleman and two boys arrived at my desk. I knew immediately by the look on their faces that they were family of the boy. The chaplain had already arrived, so I called him to escort the three to the chapel to receive