I was working an overnight in the ICU. It was a quiet night, census was low, and the patients we did have were either stable or waiting for a bed on the floor. Around 2 am, we get a call letting us know we were getting a new admission. 21 year old female presenting to the ED by ambulance after being found unresponsive in a bar bathroom. As one tends to do, we started speculating what had happened to this girl. Someone mentioned that it was probably her 21st birthday and she had taken her celebrating a little too far. Everyone agreed that this was probably the case. As we prepared for her arrival we could see her lab results. Her alcohol level was significant. As guessed, her date of birth correlated to that day's date. The nurse in the ED reported she arrived completely unresponsive and barely breathing. "She looked dead," the ED nurse related to me as I was taking report. She began to vomit and was intubated for airway protection. Although the ventilator showed she was not taking any spontaneous breaths, she was becoming more and more agitated trying to pull the tube out. When she finally arrived to the unit, it was conveyed she came very close to success during the ambulance ride over to our side of the campus. She had been given multiple boluses of midazolam in an attempt to sedate her and it seemed to be working. When a person has such a high amount of alcohol in their system and requires that much medication for effective sedation, one can safely assume this isn't the first time they have drank this heavily.
I looked at this girl, my age, my size and weight, intubated. Her birthday night. She is never going to forget this night. She probably will feel some shame every time she thinks about what happened. Maybe she won't. Maybe this won't any kind of impression on her and she'll go back to school and continue drinking until she passes out. Strangers found her in a bathroom, cleaned her vomit, took her out of her clothes and put her in a hospital johnny. They made judgments about her and formed opinions about her life and the way she lived it.
Her mother was at her bedside, slightly embarrassed to be in this situation but very grateful her daughter was alive. I couldn't help but think of the consequences I would have to face if this had been me. Who knows, your parents tend to surprise you in these kind of situations. Her mother kept saying how displeased her daughter would be when she woke up and realized she wouldn't be able to take her upcoming finals or at least adequately study for them.
By the time I left in the morning, she was waking up. By the time my head hit my pillow, the tube was probably out and she would begin processing what had happened.
