Oops
A long time ago I used to work as a nursing auxiliary on a coronary care unit. Most of the time it worked like an ordinary ward, so I'd make beds, gave the patients their grub, keep supplies stocked up, make beds, help the patients wash, helped the patients go to the loo, emptied linen skips, and make beds. About once a shift, on average, all hell would break loose when someone having a heart attack would be admitted by ambulance or someone on the ward flaked out. I'd keep the poor relatives stocked up with tea and make myself useful as a gopher. We had a room where they could wait for news, away from the drama, but often more than one person would be admitted in quick sucession. This meant finding somewhere quiet for the accompanying relatives to wait, often the only place being the corridor outside the unit near to the staff room.

Now, when there was bad news, the nurses would let the waiting family members know, in private. An awful moment for anyone and demanded dignity and frankness. Once or twice, due to emergencies being think and fast that day, the task fell to me. One such afternoon we had relatives everywhere, and some very unwell people needing constant care from the nurses. One woman didn't make it and I needed to let her husband know, I'd taken him to wait in the corridor when she arrested. I walked out into the corridor and he was sitting on the plastic chair next to the blue staff room door, where I'd left him a few minutes previously. Someone must have been watching TV on break before it went manic, as I heard the sounds of adverts coming throught the door. As I let him know his partner for 30 years had died, in that clinical, impersonal ante chamber, the muffled but blaring theme tune to 'Quincy' filled the gap in the conversation. I see his face every time I hear it now.
(drudge_dread, Sun 31 Jan 2010, 19:55, Reply)