The Code Blue Blues

Working as a critical care nurse will certainly grant one the opportunity to witness a code blue. One night in the Pediatric ICU, a three month old baby was flown in by chopper due to respiratory distress. Me and my fellow nurses greeted the flight team and began to settle the baby boy into his tiny crib. At the time, the infant appeared to be stable, but I’ve learned over the years in pediatrics that kids “crash fast and get well fast.”

After the flight team left, the infant immediately stopped breathing, turned blue, and dropped his oxygen saturation from 95% to 55% and I felt the uncontrollable urge to change my “shorts” under my scrubs. Scrambling for a mask and oxygen bag, I called a code blue and began bagging this baby until back up help arrived. As a throng of doctors and nurses stormed into the baby’s room to assist me, the baby turned from blue to pink in seconds and began breathing again. I watched from every direction, just how many hands can frenzy in a small room to connect the little patient to a ventilator. Fortune cookie say: “Airway always number one…”

One morning in the ICU, a teenage boy crippled and suffering from Cerebral Palsy, was flown by chopper to our unit because he’d been bleeding from his “trach tube”, a small artificial airway placed in a patient’s throat in order to allow them to breathe properly. We were also informed that this boy had MRSA, a nasty little bug named Staph that likes to hang around. So, we all gowned up, gloved up, and wore masks.

     Seconds after we connected this boy to the ventilator, an artery in his heart ruptured and sprayed blood into the vent tubing, disconnecting it from the boy’s trach. As this poor boy bled out in front of us our code team rushed to suction him, perform CPR, and pull every drastic measure out of our hats that we could think of. Sadly, he died on the table, the staff and this young boy covered in blood. I remember vaguely being told “welcome to the ICU” as we frantically cleaned him up and ourselves in order for his family to say their final goodbyes. Later that day I knew this boy was given his wings and freed to soar through the heavens, while I tossed and turned all night…

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