Information Highway Roadkill
Networking a Heart Attack
Several years ago I came into work. As I was typing my breath grew shorter and shorter. I was having trouble focusing, and I broke out in a sweat as pain gripped and squeezed my chest. I turned to my office mate and informed him of my difficulties. He drove me the 6 blocks to the ER.
Upon arrival, they took some measurements (had erratic pulse and low blood oxygen) and I got placed on the heart attack protocol track. It's a fast track through the ER. I was in a room in 5 minutes, on oxygen, nitro and hooked up to a monitor. About 15 minutes into this I felt fine.
I'm laying there watching the monitor go <beep><BEEP> ... <beep><BEEP> and draw a pretty little heart waveform. Then it flatlines. <BEEEEEEEEEEEP> Alarms go off. I think to myself, this is what it's like to die. Odd, I feel fine. I hear the call from the hall, "CODE BLUE CODE BLUE" and a team rushes into my room with a crash cart. The monitor goes stutters back into rhythm, <beep><BEEP> ... <beep><BEEP> in a normal rhythm at this point. The doctor checks me out, and every reading is perfect. After about 10 minutes of skeptical looks at me, the team leaves.
This odd sequence repeats a second time, but the response is a bit slower. Something about crying wolf I suspect. A little bit later someone shows up from the IT department to inspect my heart monitor. He fiddles with the buttons and knobs, and says, "Oh, here's the problem. You're monitor is showing the guy next door", and skips out happy he figured it out.
This is followed shortly by a scramble into the room next door. Poor bastard had flatlined twice, and come back from the dead and I got all the attention for a case of bad asthma. Long live the computer.
Photo of monitor, Creative Commons, RW Photobug, Richard Roberson, (c) 2010.
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