Damn. I’ve only been around a few, what with home health patients making maybe mistakes and playing gopher in the local ER. It was actually worse, for me, than stuff like strokes or heart attacks. There’s just this extra edge of “wtf” to it.

Luck of the draw, the first day I was in the ER, still 17 and a student, the third patient I “helped” with, I actually had to help with. 14yo OD, pregnant and wanting to escape it all. She was not quite conscious, but not as far out as I saw later on. But she was fighting everyone trying to put a tube in, so the big kid got pointed out to hold her legs.

After that, it was a lot less panic, but a lot more uncertainty on my end. Compared to that kind of thing, finding a patient in bed barely alive was more about not being sure what to do, which is what made it worse for me. At least with a stroke, there wasn’t any uncertainty, no way I could screw up. Well, I guess that’s not true, but it felt that way.

I don’t envy the folks that deal with ODs regularly, much less a crisis shelter worker.