OCR Text |
Show Nocturne/ 15 crash cart. The charge nurse knew Mark Grover would die because he had been without oxygen for too long. Carolyn knew it too. For the final fifteen minutes of his life, Carolyn did not want him to die. That night, Mark Grover died. Carolyn thought it made perfect sense to cry. It was the only time she wanted to excuse that sort of behavior in a professional setting. Sometimes after a code, the nurses told stories about past codes. Jasmine Henry told a story about another mother coding. There were other stories where families chose to intubate a patient with severe brain damage, cases where they mortgaged the house to keep an unconscious body in a room, banking on a miracle. Of course, there were also stories of patients coding one day and then leaving the week later in full remission. No one told those stories that night. They told those stories when someone was well enough to leave out the front door, through the lobby, past the copper fountain and the gift store with overpriced teddy bears and bouquets of last-minute roses. No one could remember a night when they lost two patients. No one could remember a night when patients coded so closely together that the crash cart was not ready. Some of the nurses expressed anger towards Sydney. It is always easier to blame young nurses. Rick Thompson had been on the unit longer than anyone, even Carolyn, and he said more experienced nurses always caught the subtle signs before it was too late. No one recorded Summer's last words, but she was sure the last ones she heard were thank you. People told the story that way because they wanted to believe Summer Smith was always gracious. Many of them cried when they realized that Summer's husband was |