You arrive on shift and immediately get paged

"Your patient can't breathe"

You don't know them, they came in overnight while you slept. Sign out said she wasn't too sick.

Maybe nursing is overreacting? You go see the patient immediately

She's tripoding, her chest heaves with each breath

Pink mucous spews out of her mouth, her voice is muffled

The Nurse was NOT overreacting, your patient CAN'T breathe

Call everyone, get everything

Is a bed available in the ICU? Make one

Where's ENT? Call the ER doc too

You grab 3 different kits to make sure you can do what you have to

You get icu nurses, pharmacy, everyone who could possibly help

Your patient can't breathe

ER tries to intubate fiberoptically through the nose -->fails

Oxygen alarms blare 

Your patient can't breathe

ENT is still driving in

Your patient can't breathe

You have to try a crash intubation while the ER doc preps the neck for an emergency surgical airway

Find your target, struggle past the swollen tonsils, pass the tube beyond the cords

Air moves in and out again

Alarms stop going off

The team relaxes, fist bumps all around, slight euphoria

You sit down to write new orders. As the adrenaline wares off you nearly pass out

Your patient can breathe

You arrive on shift and immediately get paged

"Your patient can't breathe"

You don't know them, they came in overnight while you slept. Sign out said she wasn't too sick.

Maybe nursing is overreacting? You go see the patient immediately

She's tripoding, her chest heaves with each breath

Pink mucous spews out of her mouth, her voice is muffled

The Nurse was NOT overreacting, your patient CAN'T breathe

Call everyone, get everything

Is a bed available in the ICU? Make one

Where's ENT? Call the ER doc too

You grab 3 different kits to make sure you can do what you have to

You get icu nurses, pharmacy, everyone who could possibly help

Your patient can't breathe

ER tries to intubate fiberoptically through the nose -->fails

Oxygen alarms blare 

Your patient can't breathe

ENT is still driving in

Your patient can't breathe

You have to try a crash intubation while the ER doc preps the neck for an emergency surgical airway

Find your target, struggle past the swollen tonsils, pass the tube beyond the cords

Air moves in and out again

Alarms stop going off

The team relaxes, fist bumps all around, slight euphoria

You sit down to write new orders. As the adrenaline wares off you nearly pass out

Your patient can breathe