First pediatric arrest in Age 35

Imagine that its a nice day. You and your 5 year old woke up and had a normal day for the most part. Very routine. You’re outside and you’re in the front yard doing what not and your little boy is playing there around you. You hear an ice cream truck tune and know that your boy is going to want something. In just seconds, seconds you see your precious boy run enthusiastically out after the truck. Smile on his face with anticipation of sweets. Then you see the car that is behind that truck gunning straight for your kid. Your son is out of your reach, just one arm’s length too far. You try to signal the driver, but he doesn’t see you.

Then your normal day, the routine one that you were enjoying, the one where that morning you were wondering what to make for dinner or what other things needed to be done around the house, is stripped away when before your eyes you see a car going 25 miles an hour hit, mangle, and completely run over your child.

I don’t know what happened after this. Did the mom call 911? Did the driver who hit the boy call 911? Some other witness? All I know is my ER got the radio call that there was a pediatric full arrest coming. My ER is not a pediatric ER. We do not usually get the little ones because we cannot keep them if they need to be kept. When we get them, we patch them, and send them out to the pediatric hospital via critical care ambulance. By the grace of God and our wonderful staff, we got him ‘back.’

I am not a pediatric nurse. I do not have the strength to do something like that. I know my limits and weakness. Kids are one of them. The pure innocence of the world is in our children. Never anywhere on this green Earth will you find purer innocence than in that of a child untainted by the evils of the world. No matter how bratty, spoiled, tantrum throwing…They are a product of their environment and what they perceive. But in their minds, in their eyes lies what the whole world needs: absolute trust that you mean them well and complete acceptance of you as a human.

Anyway, I stayed back and took care of the other patients in the ER while the other nurses worked on this child. A child who only wanted ice cream. They were able to get a pulse back, they used some other measures, and then stabilized him for transport. As he was being wheeled by I saw his very mangled face. A face that his mother had kissed repeatedly, caressed, probably smacked too. Eyes closed and hopefully not suffering. Aside from the abrasions he seemed really peaceful. His mother was in a state of shock. Detached from the reality she was in. She was looking far away ahead of her as they were coding her son, and only when he wheeled by did she look at him and realize she was not in hell. That this was not a nightmare that she would wake up from. She clenched hey eyes tightly probably wishing that she could back to thinking that this was a dream.

When the boy left, the doctor and the staff all looked at each other and in their own ways let go. They were reacting in adrenaline and training to save the child, but now with him out of the facility, they all returned to the reality that they had coded a 5 year old boy that still could die. There were red eyes, hugs, and a “Good job guys, now let’s shake it off.” How do you do that though? I did not code the child and the things I saw I could have lived without.

All he wanted was ice cream.

No matter how....I’ll say it, no matter how shitty you think your kid is, remember he is still your kid. The one you felt kick inside you. The one whom you rocked to sleep. The one that made you feel the best love in the world. Be them a killer on death row or a humanitarian working to end poverty or world hunger, they are your child. Who at one point wanted a damn ice cream.

P.S. The boy did not survive.