Working in an ER

Well, I got to work in an ER for a few days, mostly observing really. The official Army tag line for why we were there was to "psychologically harden us to trauma". Really, the hospital we were working at didn't have any where near enough trauma to be hard on our minds. Watching a recent movie has far more blood. None of the trauma really turned my stomach. One kid with an open fracture from a car wreck was the worst, but even that wasn't bad.
One thing was pretty bad though. The drug overdoses. There were quite a few of those. Most of them were Heroin ODs which weren't bad. The junkies were just hit with NARCAN, an opiate receptor blocker. But there was one kid, 16 years old, who had taken a cocktail of drugs. He had been on antidepressants and ADHD medication and had proceeded to take a variety of illegal drugs on top of his meds. He came in comatose and stayed that way. The nurses worked on him for a while, rehydrated him, made sure he could breathe among other things. When they wheeled him to pediatrics because of his age, the nurses told me that he was going to be brain damaged. The jerking of his body was his brain spasming from lack of oxygen. That was way worse to see and hear then anything else. This kid, at 16, was going to live the rest of his life with that one mistake. Man, I hope I never have to live like that. I think the realization that it was one short period without thinking would be far worse than the actual damage.
--Andy