My Saddest Call

To date, my saddest call I’ve ever ran was watching someone lose the love of their life to death in front of their eyes.

I was in a hospital in Inglewood, and a patient a co-worker of mine brought in was in full arrest (heart stopped, not breathing) as a result of a heart attack. I hopped in and started doing chest compressions.

This man was a police officer in his early sixties. Emotionally, the hardest part of the job is not the patient, but the family and loved ones who are breaking down while you’re trying to save their loved one. In this case, the police officer’s wife was in the room while I worked on him. As I furiously pumped this man’s heart, trying to keep him alive and get it to start again, she was bawling. She cried out to God and repeatedly asked Jesus aloud to save her husband. She spoke to her unconscious husband, begging him to not leave her. It was the saddest thing I think I’ve ever witnessed, but I had work to do.

I think there’s something different about chest compressions. Physically touching, you are connected in a way to someone as they’re dying. You feel them as their life passes from them, but at the same time it’s such a violent act. You are using all your strength to keep someone alive. Him being a married police officer, I felt an even greater connection to him than I do when we’re working on say a gangbanger. I pumped and pumped, almost breaking this guy’s ribs as his wife watched, completely powerless to stop death from taking the love of her life.

Despite everything, he slipped into death. It’s very rare you can bring someone back. The doctors told me to stop. I relented. We called it. She lost it.

The nurse gave her a chair to sit in. As I took off my gloves and left the room, I stood in the hallway watching this woman. I had a front row seat to the worst moment of her life. This job gives you a view to a side of life few people ever see. It teaches you what’s really important. I don’t know how long they were married. I don’t know what her name was. But I do know she must have loved him with fierce conviction. Her life had just changed forever, and I was there to see it.

It’s the only time I’ve ever gotten choked up on the job.

Despite her praying, and crying out to Jesus, he did not answer her. People die. It’s what happens. I do not believe God ignored her cries. I believe his heart broke as much as hers.

This was my first week on the job.