A little off the top

Back in 1975, I was laboring through my first years of marriage, and my first years of graduate school. Graduate school years are notorious for poverty and mine were no different. My wife and I had two girls under the age of three and were struggling to provide the necessities for our little family. Even though gainful employment was forbidden in my grant contract, I began looking for work in order to make dining a more regular affair.

While still in my undergraduate life, I had become a registered respiratory therapist. This, I felt, would give me the means to support my family while in school. There were five hospitals within a ten-mile radius of the college. There should be a therapist position open in at least one of them. With the goal of finding a part-time position in mind, I set out one Saturday morning. I struck gold on my third visit. A small general hospital near our mobile home park was looking for a registered therapist to work nights and weekends. I leapt at the opportunity.

Now, there is another fact which must be mentioned here. Even at that young age, I was quite bald. A month before our story begins, my grandmother, for reasons I will never fathom, bought me an expensive hairpiece. Out of respect for her, I taped the hairpiece in place every morning before starting my day.

Toward the end of my first week of employment at, let’s call it Holy Moses Hospital, while walking down a hallway, I saw one of my patients sitting in a phone booth. At first glance, everything appeared normal. Mr. Strepcock was sitting in the phone booth, dressed in his robe and slippers. He appeared to be leaning against the payphone in a relaxed manner. When I came closer, however, I noticed he was dead. Dead is a clinical condition we are trained to recognize in R.T. School, and I had received top grades in my ability to spot it.

Following a preliminary check of his condition to verify my initial diagnosis, I called out to the nearby nurses’ station, “Code Red, Code Red. Call the CPR team. This patient is near death.” I didn’t specify which part of death he was near. Was he about to be dead or had he passed into the great beyond, stating his level of deadness would call for a medical opinion. To pronounce a patient dead is considered practicing medicine without a license unless you are indeed a doctor. Even if the patient is dead, doctors guard their right to pronounce him so. Here, Mr. Strepcock was cold as a mackerel, his eyes were staring, and he had the numbers 3–7 pressed into his cheek from leaning against the buttons of the phone.

As soon as I called the code, I pulled the patient out of the phone booth and onto the floor. I opened the front of his robe and gave him a goodly thump on the chest. Still unable to detect any signs of life, I began CPR. I opened the patient’s mouth and gave him the kiss of life. Following the CPR protocol, I gave him five quick breaths while observing his chest to make certain it was rising and falling with each breath.

By the time I moved down to begin chest compression, the code team had arrived with the crash cart. One nurse on the CPR team moved up to the head of the patient and, using an Ambu-Bag, began administering a breath with every five chest compressions. Another nurse unlocked the crash cart and stood ready to hand drugs and equipment to the doctor, who had arrived by that time. A third nurse stood with a clipboard, ready to record the time of every step taken by the team, as well as all drugs administered. There was a pair of nurses manning the defibrillator, one to work the controls and the other to wield the paddles. Of course, there was also a supervisor present without whom the team couldn’t be expected to function.

And so we began. Pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, breath. It was a brand new crash-cart, and the CPR team had never worked together before that morning. Everyone knew the job that was expected of them.

“Check him with the paddles,” the doctor said.

The paddle nurse placed one paddle on the front of the patient’s chest and the other on his side under his arm. All action ceased as the team stood and watched the small monitor on the defibrillator. “Beeeeeeee,” a small yellow dot sped across the screen from left to right, straight as an arrow.

“Continue compressions.”

I continued my rhythmic chest pressing and watched the team try this and speculate on that. As we worked, it became warmer in the corridor. Regardless of what you may see on TV, chest compressions are hard work. Small beads of sweat were forming on my forehead, running down and dripping off my nose.

“Lets shock him,” the doctor said. “Maybe we can get a rhythm started.”

Again, the paddles were placed on the patient’s chest and the defibrillator charged. When the device beeped showing it was ready to deliver its life restoring voltage, the nurse said, “clear,” and we all stood away.

I should mention that this small hospital had never had a CPR team prior to my arrival. All of this was new to everyone there, everyone but me, that is. I had been on a team in another, much larger hospital. One night at the larger hospital, our team was called out eleven times. Experience told me that if we could bring Mr. Strepcock around, it would be a true Lazarus event. This guy was very dead before we started. Let me again say, however, it was above my pay-grade to bring that fact to the team’s attention.

As I mentioned, it was getting warm down there on the floor. My uniform was showing sweat, and my hands were getting slippery.

“Let’s try an intracardiac injection. Get me some Epinephrine.”

As soon as the doctor turned to take the syringe from the nurse, I paused my compressions. The instant I stopped pressing on the patient’s chest, the sweat on my bald head caused the toupee tape to let go, and my hair piece fell right in the center of the patient’s chest.

When the doctor turned back around, he saw a bunch of hair right where he intended to stick the needle. Unsure what it was, he picked it up and threw it over his shoulder. The charting nurse saw a dark, furry thing fly past her out of nowhere. She smacked it with her clipboard, dropping it to the floor. The nurse, who had just given the doctor the syringe, witnessed a strange, dark, furry object falling to the ground close to her. She screamed, stomped on it several times, and kicked it into a corner.

When the doctor pronounced the patient dead, everyone relaxed. It was then that one nurse looked at me and said, “who in the hell are you?” No one on the hospital staff had ever seen me without my hair piece. To them, I was a bald stranger kneeling over the patient.

In shame, I collected my expensive toupee in a bag, punched out, and went home, intending never to return.

After arriving home, the Director of Nursing called. “This is nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sure no one on the staff will think any the less of you. It could have happened to anyone.”

I doubted her sincerity, however, because the words were barely past her lips when she erupted into hysterical, uncontrolled laughter.

When she finally managed to reign in her levity, I informed her my mind was made up. I could never show my face there again.

“OH, well,” she squeaked. “I guess it’s up to you,” and once again, she lost her composure in fits of laughter.

I never went back to that hospital, and I never again wore the toupee