Swaby 1

Felisha Swaby
Professor Juliana Anselmini
English 101
18 September 2015
Witness
On whatever the date was, because frankly I dont remember, I was a witness to a
death. Its not at all in the way that you might be thinking, it was actually a very normal
circumstance. Honestly, there was absolutely no foul play involved, just an unlucky day for this
poor man. To be more clear let me just tell you the story of how it happened.
On whichever date it was, I was walking home from Arthur C. Pico Middle School
alone. It was a Friday afternoon and the sun was at its highest point because it was dangerously
hot outside. I was almost a block away from my house when my cellphone rang. When I
answered the call I hear my mothers frantic voice on the other end. I couldnt catch everything
she was saying but what I did get was that my sister was sick and she called the ambulance. She
told me that she would explain the rest when I got to the house but that I needed to get there fast.
To be completely honest I thought it was nothing serious because my sister was always
sick when she didn't want to go to school but I listened anyway. I picked up the pace and by the
time I got to my house I saw two EMTs carrying my sister out of the house on a stretcher. My
mother had appeared behind them so I went and asked her what had happened. She explained to
me that my sister had came home complaining of intense pain in her lower stomach. My
mother then asked me if I could accompany my sister to the hospital because she had work that
night and needed to rest. I thought about how great it would be to just go up to my room but I
agreed nevertheless.

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When I jumped into the rear of the ambulance I instantly realized that I should have
brought a sweater or cardigan with me. The ambulance was cold and too bright just like I knew
the hospital would be. I looked down to my sister and asked her how bad her pain was and she
said it was an eleven out of ten. The EMT next to me laughed and told her that she would be at
the hospital in about ten minutes. The ride wasnt too long but the whole time on it I was
thinking about how I shouldve just went to bed instead. I knew ahead of me was just a long,
boring night at the hospital and I was not looking forward to it.
When the ambulance pulled into the emergency room he informed us that we were
going to be going through fast track. I was grateful because it meant that I didnt have to sit in
the ER waiting area listening to people cough and babies cry. We rolled right into the emergency
room itself and a nurse at the desk to the EMT to put us in room 18. There are no rooms in the
emergency room really, it was just a curtain pulled around your bed to give you the illusion that
you were in a room. I sat on the chair all the way to the side of the bed and looked around. From
there I could see the room across from us and next to us. The room across from us had a middle
aged woman in it with a really swollen face and the one next to us was empty.
We had been there for almost an hour and a half when a man was being escorted by a
nurse to the empty bed. He looked a little worse for wear, his skin looked grey and clammy and
his eyes had giant bags under them. When the nurse asked him what was wrong he said that he
hadnt been feeling well for about a week or two. After she took his temperature she informed
him that she thought he might just have a common cold and to wait until the doctor came around.
I already knew he would be waiting a while because the doctor hadnt even come in to see my
sister yet. It was around another hour when the doctor came to us, in the time waiting the man
across from us had coughed until he had vomited. The doctor had told my sister that he was

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going to be sending her for a CAT scan when the man across yelled for a glass of water. A nurse
came in and told him he needed to settle down and that he could not have any water. I looked
over and saw that the man was bent over with the nurse guiding him back to the bed to lay down.
After my sister was taken to her CAT scan I was left alone in the room so I looked
around and saw that the man was lying in his bed with his eyes open and his heart monitor
beeping quickly. The nurse had came in and asked him how he was feeling but he didnt answer
so she asked again. When he didnt respond the second time she rushed over to the head of his
bed and put her ear near his face. I assumed he wasnt breathing because the next minute the
nurse was slamming the blue CODE button on the wall and a load of nurses rushed into the
mans room. Everyone was moving extremely fast now, running in and out of the room from the
crash cart and back. The doctor came running in telling the nurses to start chest compressions,
when that didnt work they tried to shock him. Nothing was working so the doctor said he had to
cut him open and that he needed available hands. He was digging through this mans chest while
ordering other nurses to push medication through his IV.
Push an Epi! The doctor shouted to no one in particular. One nurse fumbled with the needle
then injected the substance. I assumed that didnt work because not even a minute later he was
asking for another and then another. After pushing so many Epis the doctor was getting
frustrated, you could hear it in his voice.
I have to open his chest. The doctor said then after that all you could hear was the
rapid movements of the nurses. Blood red gauzes were falling to the floor along with slippery red
gloves. The heart monitor was still beeping rapidly and the nurses talking to one another. The
doctor directing them on when to pump and scoop, I assume that he meant scoop the blood out
so he could see. He told one nurse to start massaging the heart and the monitor's speed decreased

Swaby 4
dramatically. Another Epi was given but again no effect. After around twenty minutes of a good
effort the monitor was quiet, just a long humming sound. I watched through the open curtain as
the doctor walked from the side of the bed and said to a waiting nurse, Time of death, 4:02 am.