When you are faced with a lifeless person time arrests.

He was on the floor of the bathroom, head greyed, pink foam around his mouth, neck flexed against the porcelain, chins blending into chest and silent. We practice endlessly for this scene. Shout help, airway, breathing, oxygen, heart massage, shocks, drugs, crowds of people to help.

Yet as I looked at him, my first urge was to slap him awake, to shout wake up and to prise open his eyes. I was furious.

How could he be like this? We had been talking about deserted theme parks barely 20 minutes before. He was ready to go home. His bag was packed. He had an allotment of plants awaiting his hands. His new knee ready for action.

His Mrs bought us cake that morning and I was still chewing it as I entered his room to say goodbye and to complement her baking. She was out getting the car. And he, well he was dead.

I pull the crash alarm and shout for someone to call the resuscitation team. I grab him by a foot and heave him flat, opening his airway. His head lolled to the side, draining from his nose and mouth. He was pretty big, with a deep chest. I wondered as I leant all my bodyweight through my hands on his sternum, am I anywhere near squeezing his heart or are my efforts dissipating through the snaps of ribs?

More fluid comes through his nose, a gurgle of juice where it shouldn’t be, a gurgle of air moving but no gurgle of life.

People come. Things happen. We intervene; tubes, gas, suction. Clothes torn open. I finally find a vein and give him adrenalin. Nothing. A medical student keeps time. 2 minutes. 2 minutes. 2 minutes. Another student shares CPR with me. No heart rhythm is detected. The monitor displays a gently wavy idle line telling us he’s gone.

I look down at his fresh white dressing on his fresh new knee. The corner peeled back revealing a wound that would never heal.
We stop. We take our hands away from him.

A head pokes round the open door “who is this guy’s doctor?” my immediate thought was ‘fuck, I fucked up, I caused this. Fuck fuck what did I miss?’ My belly floated, overwhelmed by fear, panic and shame. “His wife is on the phone” she said, “on mute, she said she’s waiting for him out the front.” She grimaced as I proffered a hand, with bloodied glove half on, to take the call.

I take the phone into the loo with me. I sit on the bin, hiding from the noise outside. I ask her to meet me in the hall. She asks me what’s wrong. I ask her to meet me in the relative’s room. She asks me what’s wrong. I hesitate and, in that imperceptible pause, she knew.