Things don’t always go well. One night, an unconscious man is brought into the ED. His friend actually drags him into the department. He has no pulse; he’s not breathing. He is white as a sheet. We perform CPR on him, going and going until help finally arrives in the form of a GP specialist who has travelled from home. The half an hour we spend working on him seems three times longer.
Unfortunately, we don’t get him back.
Watch Dr Anselm Wong re-tell Emergency at night:
Emergency at night by Dr Anselm Wong (@AnselmWong1) appears in EMERGENCY: Real Stories from Australia’s ED Doctors, available now from Penguin Books Australia.
Dr Anselm Wong
Anselm Wong is an Emergency Physician and Clinical Toxicologist at the Austin Hospital and Victorian Poisons Information Centre in Melbourne. He is the Director of the Global Educational Toxicology Uniting Project (GETUP)which aims to connect countries with and without toxicology services. He is actively involved in Clinical Toxicology Research and is completing his PhD aiming to improve the management of paracetamol overdose.
Real ED Stories 