Was the Patient ready To Go?

My husband works throughout the area and has seen a lot of different and sometimes odd things.  One account that still plays on his mind occurred over 10 years ago.

            To set the scene, he was called to a smaller house for a report of an unconscious person.  The caller was the grandchild of the patient who arrived home from school and was not able to wake the patient.  The local fire department arrived first and was in a small back room performing CPR on the patient.  Upon hearing the condition of the patient they carried him to the living room, which was much larger and better to assess and treat the patient. 

Their assessment revealed that the patient was most likely in cardiac arrest for an extended period of time.  My husband and his partner discussed the options of continuing treatment of the patient which involved providing advanced life support or ceasing all efforts.  The decision was made to continue CPR because they did not know how long the patient was without a pulse.  Immediately after the decision was announced to the EMTs and fire fighters a radio on the opposite side of the room turned on.  He does not recall what the title of the song was but he distinctly recalls that it was a gospel type song speaking of “being gone”.

The radio was an older radio.  There was no remote control or anyone near it to turn it on.  Everyone in the room gave pause, looked at each other and tried to come up with a reasonable explanation of what had just happened.  Unable to come up with a simple answer, they removed the patient from his house and brought him to the hospital.   Despite the best efforts by the responders and in the ER the patient had passed away.  To this day my husband can’t help but think that the patient had attempted weigh his opinion about being taken to the hospital.  (The patient was making the radio come on and trying to express he had already gone.)

( a first hand experience by a paramedic first responder)