Everyone knows the universal signal for “choking”, but does everyone know what to do when they see it?
“Help”, she attempted to gasp.
I stood there, in front of Sofia, my advisor’s seven year old daughter, watching her turn red from the chin up to her forehead. My first thought was that she would just cough and the Lifesaver, ironically enough, that she had been previously enjoying would fly out, and she would be fine. However, there I stood with my roommate, friend, my advisor’s twin boys, and Sofia, still choking. I was suddenly overcome with a sense of actual deep fright. I had felt a twinge of this feeling a couple times in my life: a horror movie, a haunted house, a practical joke from a friend, but this was different. This was complete and utter helpless fear. I looked to my roommate and friend and could tell they were not feeling any safer than I. Something in my body took over and I stepped to the bed that formerly held a bouncing, gleeful little girl, and now, within seconds, was the place in which would determine the majority of my thoughts for the rest of my life.
Th...
The patient was more beautiful than she realized. If only she could see it for herself. The color from her dainty face had drained to a sickened green tint and her eyes widened in fear. The walls of the clinic exam room were ordained in calming colors, but offered the young woman no comfort. She continued to blink rapidly as if she would awaken from the nightmare; her long eyelashes could not fan the health worker’s words away. She thought it was harmless, just a night of fun. It made her feel valuable and attractive. Yet being desired now left her alone, crumpling to the floor screaming between sobs and desperately reaching to the empty air around her. She couldn’t grasp any security. Not only did that harmless night of fun result in her becoming
Continue by giving two slow breaths, one to one and a half seconds per breath. Watch for the chest to rise, and allow for exhalation between breaths. Check for a pulse. The carotid artery, on the side of the neck, is the easiest and most accessible. If breathing remains absent, but a pulse is present, provide rescue breathing, rescue breathing is one breath every three seconds.
This episode of Intervention is about Jeanna. Jeanna is a twenty-five year-old, homeless, and jobless woman living in Madras, Oregon. During the episode she was living in a trailer on her friend Josh’s property, but was evicted due to drug use. Jeanna is addicted to crystal meth and she injects through an IV three times a day for the past four years. She has been unable to hold a job since her use became so frequent. She stated that when she is in a binge she will stay up for almost seven days straight. She admits to selling her body for money to buy drugs, and her mother described her as sweetly manipulating men at bars to get money for drugs. Her father was in prison the majority of her life and when he got out he wanted to begin to build
When Everyman was admitted to the hospital as a child for a routine hernia surgery, he didn't believe that anything would go wrong. While he was asleep the night before his surgery, he was woken up by the sound of doctors and nurses at the bed next to him. When he woke up on the morning of his surgery, the little boy was no longer in his bed next to him. “In that moment of terror when they lowered the ether mask over his face as if to smother him, he could have sworn that the surgeon, whoever he was, had whispered, 'Now I'm going to turn you into a girl.'” (Roth 29). His first thoughts were that the doctors had killed the little boy and were going to give him a similarly unpleasant fate. This was the first glimpse of death he had had in his life thus far and it terrified him. Many years later, when he was in his fifties and needed to have s...
“Get the doc now!” Mother shrieked. Bump, crash, bang, the stretcher carried my lifeless body down a populous hall. “Get and I-V now! Heart beats are slowing, we may need resuscitation, get me the shocks now!” “Oh my lord, no please don’t take my boy lord! Not now…” My mom snuffled. *Whimpers and cries”
I can still remember that small enclosed, claustrophobic room containing two armed chairs and an old, brown, paisley print couch my dad and I were sitting on when he told me. “The doctors said there was little to no chance that your mother is going to make it through this surgery.” Distressed, I didn’t know what to think; I could hardly comprehend those words. And now I was supposed to just say goodbye? As I exited that small room, my father directed me down the hospital hallway where I saw my mother in the hospital bed. She was unconscious with tubes entering her throat and nose keeping her alive. I embraced her immobile body for what felt like forever and told her “I love you” for what I believed was the last time. I thought of how horrific it was seeing my mother that way, how close we were, how my life was going to be without her, and how my little sisters were clueless about what was going on. After saying my farewells, I was brought downstairs to the hospital’s coffee shop where a million things were running
However, after my instructor left from the room, I reintroduced myself, and started a conversation, stating my objectives for the day. As I began to speak my actions while I administer vital sign, I was promptly damped by an expectedly attitude from my patient. Whenever I attempt speaking, I...
I am in a well-lit room with soft carpet under my feet. The room has a unique sweet smell that I do not recognize. My body is trembling as I listen to the soft music. My worst fear in this instant is that I will pass out and leave my mom to face this on her own. The reason I am in this room right now is not that I have always wanted to experience this. The only reason I am here is that it is not fair to leave my mom to deal with this on her own.
Nausea and fear flooded my veins, churning my stomach into a bubbling pot of anxiety. Heat spread across my face surely turning it a bright noticeable shade of red. Thick wads of saliva ran down my throat. Sweat traced its way down the back of my neck. The smells of coffee and sandwiches overwhelmed my senses. My eyes darted around the table from one parent to the next. Bright white light illuminated the street outside the window making the three people around me look like nothing more than black shadows. Dad, who sat across from me, cleared his throat. He studied me with a sense of pride, he looked more like he was glowing, but his gaze shifted to my mom, my real mom, and that look got a little more hostile.
“No Braden, she’s not dead,” a deep voice, belonging to my dad, reassures my six-year-old little brother. I try to pull my hands toward my ribs in an attempt to sit up, but in return: an excruciating pain shoots through my left arm; a shrill sound comes out of my mouth; and tears start flowing down my face.
Shivering in the blasting cold night, the words fear and death invaded my soul and lamentably waited for the deathblow. The darkness of the lemon orchard under the full moon hidden behind long, high parallels of cloud was accelerating my fear and advancing the idea of `suddenly disappearing` in my mind. I had never thought of death before. The rows of lemon tree standing like elite soldiers made me feel like an enemy soldier captured in war and was being taken to be executed by guillotine. A shotgun was targeted towards my head which made my eyes and legs become paralysed; thus I could not feel or sense anything. My eyes looking blindly and my legs walking briskly with the question” will I die” stuck on my mind like a tick attaches into skin.
This book is full of action and suspense, as the characters complete their quest, encountering life threatening obstacles. Despite all of the danger and urgency, there is a lot of humor, especially with Leo, who is very witty and amusing.
Oh my God! Betsy!" It was my dad. I was disappointed and embarrassed of myself. I had let him down. My voice yelled for help as my heart beat rapidly with fear and relief. The car wobbled. I could feel the weight of the car lift slowly off me. For the first time, intense pain struck my lower half. "Crawl out of there," someone yelled to me. I pushed against the ground with all my might but I couldn't move. The pain was excruciating, nevertheless I could not feel the lower half of my body. I felt paralyzed. Still struggling to move, I felt strong arms glide around my shoulders and under my armpits. They drug me out of the way of the falling car. My dad had saved me. As I lie on the weed covered ground, several people surrounded me. I dreamily looked around and saw my sister sitting Indian style next to me, plastered in blood. She had run barefoot to the nearest house to call 911 and my dad. She was my angel. We sat there in shock. Was it just a dream? Everything had happened so fast. Every minute lying on that dirt felt like a lifetime. Strangers kept poking every inch of my body and bugging me with questions that I didn't have answers to. After that, the ambulance finally arrived. They rushed over to my sister and I and they asked me a number of questions that I obliviously answered and started to get me ready to go. With a bright orange brace around my neck they slowly pushed me onto a stiff
My feet planted firm on the ground as I bit the inside of my cheeks to feel something. My pigtails and gray uniform forgotten along with my surroundings as I just watched death do his work. I didn’t feel like a kid anymore. The once peaceful scene turned into a mass of chaotic moments as soon as metal clashed on metal, and the remains of glass littered the floor of the street in front of the fenced gates of my school. My peers screamed loudly but the sound of the crash replayed in my head, but worst of all is that I saw the blond hair of the woman cover her face like a veil tainted red. My teacher ushered us to wait inside yet my mind was numb and my thoughts blurred as I heard the cries of the adults.
Suddenly I awake at the noise of sirens and people yelling my name. Where am I? Those words radiate out my thoughts but never touching my lips. Panic engulfs me, but I am restricted to the stretcher. “Are you ok?” said the paramedic. I am dazed, confused, and barely aware of my surroundings. Again “Yes, I am fine” races from my thoughts down to my mouth, but nothing was heard. Then, there was darkness.