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This story is true, but I don't remember the dates and details, just the expressions on the face of the young woman as she told it to me.
I had been dating a nurse named Noreen for only a little while when one evening she had to stay close to the phone. A young man would undoubtedly die that evening and she would have to go over and pronounce him dead. I looked at her face to see if this was an elaborate form of a headache, but she explained that the fellow had struggled with cancer for years, but his time had finally arrived and he was in good hands at home surrounded by a family that was doing everything possible to make him comfortable. When he passed on she was legally required to physically check him and pronounce him dead. Since a doctor is not needed to sign the certificate in this state the job is left to the nurses.
Her very matter-of-factness made me ask more questions about her job. She summed it up with this story.
"I had been an RN for a few months, had put in all the required hours and training in another hospital to be a head nurse. When an opening came up I transferred cross-town to be the nurse in charge of a pediatric intensive care unit.
"It was the first night, two hours into the shift, when the call came that an eight week old baby in cardiac arrest was on its way. I was calm, prepared; thought that here was my first chance to save a very young life.
"The baby could not breathe on its own and a series of tests showed no reason for this. I started a head to toe finger probe check and found an indentation on the skull in back of the ear. A cat scan showed that the skull was shattered with a large v-shaped piece pressed into the brain. There was no hope.
"The police were there, of course, along with the mother and her boy friend, and they quickly found that when the baby cried the man had punched it, causing this major trauma. He was cuffed and taken away.
"By then the baby had died, and I cleaned him up as best I could so that the mother could take one last look at him before she too was taken to jail. The police were strict, but they had hearts and were giving her this chance.
"I went out to the woman and said, 'Would you like to see him one last time?'"
"She looked up and said, "What would I want to see the fucking thing for?'"
"I was speechless, and the last thing I remember is her silhouette between two policemen as they took her off to jail." This must have really made an impression on Noreen for she repeated it two more times. "The last thing I saw was her silhouette between two policemen as they took her away to jail."
"I learned two things that night," she told me. "One is - the sicker the better. I'm at my best when confronted with the worst emergencies.
"The other is that there really is evil in the world. Miserable, gut turning evil. Now when I save a life I'm thankful for a chance to do something to balance the scales. There is good in the world too. We just have to work for it."
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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