Sanctity of life

I am not a religious person, but an experience I had made me, for the first time I feel, realise how special we condsider human life.

Was in A&E with my colleague. Whenever we are there, nothing exciting really seems to happen, we see a lot of good medicine and a lot of good care, but nothing really exciting like you see on the TV. There is the red "Bat-phone" that rings if the ambulance people think the case is serious enough to need further attention and it had only rung once before when we have been there.

It rang again. ?CVA heart rate 30. We've seen plenty of ?CVAs before, but the red phone never had rung before. Perhaps the paramedic had a feeling. When the guy arrived, everyone crowded round. The guy was pretty stable, his BP was a bit low, but the SHO had done all she could. She also had a bad feeling, she thought that he could arrest at any moment so we ran him round to resus. Surely his family must have known that this was something very serious.

Anyway, we stood in resus for an hour and a half and the guy had x-rays, CT scans etc. He was eventually stabilised, DNR'd by the consultant and the guy's family and sent to MAU.

Two medical students, three ambulance staff, one medical SHO, two nurses, one SHCA, one medical registrar, one consultant physician, three radiographers. 14 people all making sure that the patient was OK.

I think that is truly special.