Two of the worst work days

I was only able to sleep in until 8:30 this AM.  I am disappointed about this.  I thought, for sure, that I'd end up sleeping all day long after the weekend I've had.  In four days, I had 2 of the worst work days in my nine years of employment at the hospital.  Saturday, there was no secretary scheduled at 11am.  Of course I got tossed into it since I was already there.  At 3pm, I had to remain on the desk to help a new secretary.  It was very, very busy.  The department was completely full.  As 6pm rolled around, I was so excited to be getting out of there in one hour.  That's when we got the call on the ambulance line that a STEMI (aka heart attack) was on the way in.  I immediately activated the stemi page system and made sure that an ER doc was aware of the situation.  About one minute before the ambulance arrived with the patient, the ambulance line rang again... another STEMI on the way in.  Never in my life have I seen or heard of 2 simultaneous stemi's.  We've had a handful of back to back stemi's, but never 2 at the same time. I immediately called the stemi doctor and asked if he wanted me to try and contact the second ambulance and try to divert them to another facility.  I was hoping he'd agree to my great idea.  No such luck.  He informed me that he was the only interventionalist on call and that he'd assess both patients in our ER.  The cardiologist determined that both patients were, in fact, having a heart attack and he was able to contact another local interventionalist who, wasn't on call, but agreed to go to our neighboring hospital and cath the second patient.  So with another local ambulance on standby in our ER, we had them package up the second patient and transport him to the other hospital.  Both patients were stented and are doing much better now.
Yesterday was the last of my 4 day stretch.  The department was full all day long, with 20-30 people in the waiting room at any given time throughout my twelve hour shift.  Around 2pm is when complete chaos hit as we received a cardiac arrest from one local ambulance company.  Unfortunately, the patient didn't survive.  Then we received a woman who had a pneumothorax and required a chest tube.  I tried, for almost three hours, to do post mortem care on the code patient so that we could free up a spot in the trauma room.  Another failed attempt at that when another ambulance came in with a baby who had a febrile seizure and began seizing again.  I heard the nurse's call for help and immediately ran to see if there was anything I could do to help.  Our ER doc took the initiative to pull a stable patient out of a room so that we could get the baby on the monitor as he would not stop seizing this time.  As I used the ambu bag as an oxygen blow-by, the seizure eventually stopped and the baby became post-ictal... and then stopped breathing.  He turned gray and limp right in front of our eyes.  We began bagging him, checked for a pulse (which he never lost), and yelled for the doctor.  Our quick responses helped get the baby breathing on his own again.  We all stood there with the doctor, holding our breath, and looking at the monitor to make sure vital signs were stable.  I happened to be the only one to look down at the baby and at that very same moment he started to vomit, filling the ambu mask.  Without thinking, my hands sprung out in front of me, grabbed the baby, and rolled him onto his side... which saved the baby from choking and/or aspirating.  I can't remember what happened next but I found myself kneeling on the stretcher, with the baby's back against my leg (which was keeping him on his side in case he threw up again) while I, once again, supplied O2 blow-by with the ambu bag.  The doctor even said, "You know it's a bad situation when Stacie is on a patient's bed."  The situation became bad enough that we intubated the baby and medflighted him to a Boston hospital.  After we loaded the baby in the chopper, it was time for me to go home, but not before I cleaned up the mess that we made while treating the baby.  At 7:30pm I was overdue and ready to punch out.  As I went to gather my coat, a paramedic came around the corner, stopped when she saw me, and said, "We need respiratory and a crash cart now!"  A patient was in respiratory distress and had to be intubated.  I didn't leave work until almost 9pm.
I'm thankful the last four days are over but I wish I had gotten more sleep.. Lord knows I could use it.