A Matter of Time

So far I haven't had a patient die en-route. Today, I had to change this to not having a patient die in the aircraft.

I've had, including today's patient, three people start to code in flight. So far, my med crews have been awesome and kept it from continuing to finality.

Today we did everything we could, I even got Albuquerque center to rescind a hold clearance and give me a turn inside the gate for an approach at Albuquerque to save something like 15 minutes.

But, as it would happen, halfway to the hospital on I-25, they coded. It wasn't a surprise, but still, when you've been working on someone for the better part of 6 hours, and to be just 10 minutes from the receiving facility, it's rough.

I don't feel guilty though, and my crew shouldn't either: as long as we've done our jobs and can look back and say "I did my best", then that's all we can do. We're not God, and the human body has a finite level of entropy before failure is immanent and permanent.

So, my record still stands, 68 and 0. But I can't help but wonder how much longer I'll be able to hold that 0.