Soteriology

Snap, crackle, pop. With each compression I felt the man's chest wall crunch under my weight. I straddle the side of his bed, my knees resting against his yellowish, cold arm, my feet dangling four feet above the fluorescent-lit floor.  This is the most violent and barbaric act I have ever performed against another human being. The irony of prolonging a life. 

I balk at the phrase "saving a life," because no such concept exists. We prolong, not save. To think otherwise demands a hubris and carelessness that I refuse to entertain. The man whose rib cage I destroyed was "saved." Twice. His heart failed his body completely, and twice restarted, albeit with the aid of copious amounts of epinephrine and electricity. Success is measured in heartbeats.

In the aftermath, once the obliging mob vacated the scene, he remained alone. I stood at his doorway a while and watched him. Propped up in bed he almost looked human. Air entered his lungs again, now through a beeping machine. Color returned to his face, highlighting his pencil-thin mustache. Blood surged through his half-starved tissues once again, like a flooding river washing the debris and detritus downstream. But this river flows in a circle. There is no delta, no escape. 

I watched this man, knowing he was in the final moments of his life. We had paralyzed him, broken him, and prolonged him. We had traded his body and his dignity for an extra hour of chaos. This brand of salvation, I think, may be the most powerful drug we feed the dying.