Starting to see a pattern....

At 4:30 in the morning we were awakened by a call. Dispatch gave us the address and the nature of the call. Person down. Not breathing. Feeling like the grim reaper I rolled out of bed and stumbled to the truck. On our way to the call I made a mental checklist of everything to grab in order to work a cardiac arrest. Oxygen, jump bag, monitor, backboard for CPR, and so on. Dispatch came across with more information. "Caller state's he is cold to the touch. CPR is not in progress". It sounded like he was already too far gone. We got to the house and several family members were huddled on the front porch, sobbing. I somberly entered the house and a sheriff's officer pointed to a chair in the living room. A very large man appeared to be asleep watching TV. His arms and fingers were discolored from pooling blood. I felt for a pulse. He was cold, and rigor had already set in. He had been dead for several hours. I confirmed that there was nothing we could do. His wife poked her head into the room and looked at me with questioning eyebrows, still in disbelief. I shook my head and said simply "I'm sorry". There was no sense in giving her false hope. She knew he was already dead, but needed the confirmation. I really don't like calls like this. I feel so helpless for the families. I gathered the necessary information to complete my report and asked the family if there was anything we could do for them. Of course there wasn't.

I went back to the station to do my report, and something very bizarre occurred to me. I had run three dead people in two shifts, and they all shared the same first name. I'm still scratching my head over that.