#47 - An EMT on Death, CPR, and End-of-Life Wishes
What does death look like when it’s part of your job?
An EMT calls in with a pragmatic, unromantic view of what happens in a medical emergency. Not because they’re detached, but because they’ve seen what fear does in real time, and what people reach for when the stakes are suddenly life and death.
We talk about CPR and the physical reality of what it does to the body, and the gap between what most of us imagine versus what it actually looks like in the moment. We also spend a good amount of time on DNRs and end-of-life wishes, and the uncomfortable truth that even when someone has been clear, those wishes can still get overridden when a family is panicking and decisions are being made fast.
It’s a call about death as something logistical and immediate, and about the kind of clarity that comes from being close to it again and again. Less philosophy, more reality. The question underneath it all is simple: how do we make sure the people we love know what we want, before they’re standing in a hallway being asked to decide?
Book recommendation: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson)
If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.
If this episode feels like a lot, the Episode Guide can help you find a place to start based on where you are.