Code Blue: Baby blues

Of all the codes in the ED, baby code blues are by far the worse to ever encounter. It would be great to wish that no one in the ER would ever have to see one but that will never happen. We had one the other night and it was my 2nd one. My first one I was just a runner. The one that just gets items that the other nurses or doctors yell out. This time I was in the code. A place I would rather not be. In fact my mind went completely blank when the call came in. I couldn’t remember how to CPR. I just blanked out. How embarrassing would that be if I just stood there. Not knowing what to do! I shook it off, grabbed the computer and help set up the room. Everyone manned their stations and it appeared I would have to document and be the runner because we only had 3 nurses and 1 tech. When the baby of 16 months came in she was blue. The crew was not allowed to put in a line because they were a BLS crew. The ALS one was too far out to get their first. So all that was started was CPR. My charge nurse was leading the code. He was trying to get an IO in her leg. (IV that goes directly into the bone when a line can’t be gotten) The tech was doing compression but you can tell it was getting to him so the charge nurse took over while our other nurse was pushing meds. In the process of charting my computer crashed but since I always prefer paper charting I was kind of of relieved. It was the longest code of my life. Why? Because I was the one telling the doctor when we could push the next med that might just help this baby. She would ask how much more time till the next epi and I would have to tell her 2 mins to go. My watch felt like it was broke because it was ticking so freaking slow. After 35 mins of this code the doctor allowed the parents in while we were still doing CPR. She needed them to see that we were doing all that we could. We all knew she was waiting to tell them that it would be time to stop. The mother already realizing this was in tears and asked if she could hold her baby now. We called the code 45 mins later and she held her little baby. She rocked and cried while dad held her. Grandma wailed. Those of us that couldn’t contain their tears walked quickly out of the room and the rest of us with tears in our eyes tried to remain strong. Setting up chairs and passing out tissues. Its beyond sad when a little one is lost…its just devastating.