Yeet?

The following tale contains the following:

CPR

MtM

AED

Agonal breathing

Successful Resus

Male rescuer

Female victim

One mention of throwing up but not resus related

One mention of a seizure but not resus related

Unlike most high school sweetheart couples, Harrison and Elise had a remarkably happy relationship. Not many could say that they managed to stay together and be happy despite going to different colleges. Not many could say that they proposed while scuba diving(Elise’s idea). Not many could say they got married, and then have a honeymoon in New York City of all places. 

They had only been married for around a week, and the honeymoon had lasted a day so far, but that first day had been one of the happiest of Harrison's life. They had rented bikes along central park, visited the zoo and museum, looked down from the Empire State building, and took a subway to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone roller coaster. (Again, Elise's idea). Tomorrow they planned to see a play on Broadway, and maybe try authentic NYC pizza. But tonight, they had arrived back at their hotel, hand in hand, laughing about the day they had just had.

“Did you see your face on the picture of us on the roller coaster!?" Elise said, laughing her head off. “You looked like you were about to throw up!”

“Eli, I did throw up afterwards.” said Harrison, blushing slightly.

“Ya, I know.” Elise said with a smug grin. “Thats why I bought it and I'm gonna send it to all of our friends. That should give them something to laugh about.”

“Ha ha.” Harrison said. He had to admit, after the soul shaking ride, he kind of liked the photo Elise bought. He felt fine now anyway after drinking a (very expensive) bottle of water he got at the boardwalk.  

The couple took some time to themselves to unwind after the fun filled first day of their honeymoon. Showering, putting pajamas on, brushing teeth, the usual nighttime rituals before turning in. Soon, they were in the large queen sized hotel bed, snuggled up under the blankets, watching some drama show they have not seen before.

“Ok, that is not how it worked when we were in high school.” Harrison said, watching some characters have a screaming match over something regarding relationships.

“All I'm thinking of is what would happen of Elenor was in this show.” said Elise, squinting at the TV since she had taken off her spectacles earlier. “I think if she was in that school for about five minutes, she would die of excitement over all the drama that these people go through.

Harrison laughed. Elise made him laugh a lot. It was one of the things he liked about her. Along with her bravery, her desire to try new things all the time, and it helped that she also had a very cute face. Light brown skin, dark brown eyes, and a slight overbite she never bothered to get braces for. 

 Elise on the other hand, loved Harrison because he was a very understanding listener whenever she had problems with her dysfunctional family, that he was great at playing music for Elise and her friends, and for that despite his nervousness he would always be willing to do whatever it took to help others. Although Elise told him she also thought his face was cute, with his blue eyes, a slight stubble, and even the little scars on his face from always getting hit by baseballs in middle school.

When the episode ended, Elise and Harrison turned the TV and lights off, and almost automatically moved closer, wrapping their arms around each other. They kissed each other, holding the other closer in a tight cuddle. The fire in Harrison's soul that had ignited ever since Elise had asked him to homecoming all those years ago burned if possible even warmer and brighter. Harrison and Elise knew that “soul mates” were likely just fantasy, but if anyone asked them, they had found their own.

“I love you Eli.” Harrison whispered, kissing Elise on her forehead. “I hope you liked our first full day here.”

“I did.” Elise whispered back. “I loved it, Harri. Thank you.” 

The two were close enough where Harrison could feel Elise's heart beating, and likely that Elise could feel his own. Harri kind of liked it when this happened. It made him closer to his wife. Made her feel more real. It made him remember, “I am in love with the most beautiful, funniest, kindest, and strongest girl in the entire world..and she's right next to me, and real, and alive.”

Wait? Was her heart ever this slow before?

Normally on the rare chances that Harrison got to hear Elise's heart this close, it was fast, strong, and radiated her sense of adventure. Tonight however, it was slow, and almost hollow sounding.

“Eli, how are you feeling?” Harrison asked, holding her wrist so he could compare her pulse to her true heartbeat. Also really slow.

“Tired..” Elise whispered, almost lazily, closing her eyes. Harrison assumed that must be while her heart was so slow. Their day was intense, so maybe she was just tired.

It still concerned Harrison that Elise's heart seemed to be getting slower. And slower. 

“Thump…thump….thump…..thump…. “

Elise let out a slow exhale. She seemed to melt into Harrison's arms. 

And her heartbeat was gone.

Harrison's own heart turned to ice in his chest. Shaking his wife gently, he tried to call to her, trying to get her to come back. “Eli..can you hear me? Elise..wake up!” Elise’s eyes remained closed. When Harrison put his fingers on her neck to check again for a pulse, he felt nothing there either.

“No no no no no!” Harrison cried. “Elise! Don’t die!” Waves of panic flooded through Harrison's whole body, and he felt tears start to gather around his eyes. He knew what he had to do to help her, but it never occurred to him in a million years that it would happen like this. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand, hit the emergency button, and let it ring on speaker. While it was ringing, he gently picked Elise off of the bed, and laid her down on the floor. She made a kind of weird snore/gasp sound as he put her down.

Before the operator picked up, Harrison positioned himself next to Elise's body, placed both of his hands along the center of her chest,  and began rhythmically pushing down upon it, counting in his head each compression. Elise made another snore/gasp while he was doing this, but Harrison hardly noticed it.

“Come on Eli..come back....you have to fight… our friends still need you....I still need you..”

“911 what's your location and emergency.” The person on the line said in a voice of stoic calm.

“You're not gonna believe this, but..but my wife just died in my arms.” Harrison said, trying not to cry while he spoke. “I’m at the Marathon hotel on 49th street. Room 102.

“Ok. You say your wife died? Is she breathing?”

“No!” Harrison yelled, falling to hold back a sob. “I’m doing CPR now. I got trained a year or two ago but..” 

“That's good. Keep doing CPR on her. Paramedics are on their way. You have to be calm for her, ok? I’ll count with you so we can do it properly.” The  dispatcher's voice was clearly trying to be a calm anchor for Harrison to attach itself to. Harri had lost count of the amount of compressions he had already done on Elise, so he decided it couldn't hurt to start from the beginning again.

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five” The two counted in time with each other. Faster than what Harrison was doing before. Elise’s head bobbled during each compression, and her eyes were still closed. If not for the fact that a hint of blue was forming around her lips, one might mistake her for being asleep.  “Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Therte–”

“CRACK!”

“SHIT!” Harrison yelped, raising his hands up. “Did I do something wrong!? Did I make it worse?”  He thought to himself, “Elise, if I killed you just now, I'm so so sorry.”

“That can be fixed.” The dispatcher said. “Death can’t. Keep going.”

“Right!” Harri said. “I’m gonna start again from the top, if that's ok. Elise..come on..” 

When he got to thirty,  the dispatcher said , “You can either start again and continue hands-only CPR, or if you're comfortable, you may give rescue breaths.

“I know how to give those.” Harrison tilted Elise's head upward, opened her mouth, and pinched her nostrils shut. Hesitating for a fraction of a second, he placed his mouth over hers, forming an airtight seal, giving her his own air. Her lips tasted faintly of the toothpaste she had used to brush her teeth earlier tonight. Elise's chest rose and fell slightly as Harrison breathed for her two times, and when his mouth left hers, he could feel a gust of air exhale from her lungs.  “But it's not her breathing out of them” Harrison thought, continuing another compression cycle. 

As the dispatcher asked questions about Elise's age, medical history, and some other stuff that Harri was only half listening to, he kept going with the rhythm of performing CPR. All the while, he was whispering his pleas for Elise to come back to him, usually whenever he checked for a pulse.   

 It was around the end of the third or fourth compression cycle when the dispatcher said, “Sir, there is heavy congestion on the EMTs route. Their arrival may be delayed, but there may possibly be another way to help your wife.

“ Twenty eight. Twenty nine. Thirty…Anything!” Harri said, preparing to give Elise two more rescue breaths.

“If you're at a hotel, there might possibly be an AED in the gym or lobby. If you can, could you or maybe someone else retrieve it? It may restart your wife's heart.

The gym. Harri knew the gym. He and  Elise had worked out in it that very morning. He had seen the device hanging by the water fountain. And the gym happened to be directly across from his room.

“I’ll get it!” Harri shouted. He grabbed the hotel key from the nightstand with his phone, and ran out of the room as fast as he could. Barging into the gym, he almost knocked over an elderly man lifting dumbbells as he ran to the back wall to grab the AED. The case squawked an indignant alarm as he took it, but Hararison ignored it. Elise was more important.

“Hey! What gives!?” the old man shouted.  But by the time the man had yelled those words, Harri was already back in his room by Elise's side.

“I got it!” He shouted at his phone. Elise was doing another one of those snore/gasp things again.

“Good!” The dispatcher said. Turn it on, and follow its instructions. I’ll help if you need it. Opening the box, a calm mechanical female voice began to speak.

“Don’t panic. Call for help. Remove clothing from the victim's chest. Use the sheers provided if necessary.” Harrison spotted the bright red handle of a pair of scissors inside the box.

“Sorry about this Eli..” Harrison said to her. He quickly cut through the light red pajama shirt that Elise was wearing.

“Place pads on victims chest as shown in the pictures. Then plug in the connector. 

“Make sure the pads are not touching each other, and that there is no jewelry in the way.” The dispatcher added. And make sure to peel the back of them. It's kind of like putting on a sticker. And make sure the pads are on exactly as shown in the photos. Even on her breast if you have to.”

Elise did not exactly have the biggest breasts in the world, so applying the pads was easy enough. One on her chest area, and the other on her side below her armpit. The only bit of jewelry Elise had around that area was a pearl necklace she always wore, so it would not interfere with whatever the AED had to do.

“Do not touch the victim. Analyzing heart rhythm.”

“Do not touch her.” The dispatcher said. “It needs to check for a shockable rhythm.”

“Can’t I hold her hand while it’s doing that..?” 

“No.”

Harrison stared down at Elise while the device did its work. Her face still looked so peaceful, like she was sleeping beauty. But her chest was bruised from Harrison's CPR and from whatever that crack meant. Probably a broken bone or worse given his luck tonight.” He then said aloud to Elise’s motionless form, “Come on Eli..you can do it. You have to fight.”

“Shock advised. Charging. Stand clear.” The AED said. Harrison tensed, backing away. “Press the red button now.” The device started its own alarm, and he jammed his finger onto the button

He had expected for her to do one of those super high jumps you see in movies and medical dramas. The kind where the victim's back arches up a foot in the air, and for it to make a kind of “THUNK” sound. But the shock was almost a blink and you’ll miss it moment. Elise’s body twitched slightly, and she made a slight gasping noise, but it only lasted a second.

“Check if she has any vital signs now” The dispatcher said after the AED’s beeping stopped.

Harrison reached over and put his fingers on Elise’s neck. He thought he could feel a “flutter.. flutter….flutter..” than nothing. 

“Resume CPR for two minutes.” The AED said to the air

“Come on Elise..I saw you try to come back.” Harrison whispered while he positioned his hands on Elise's now bare chest. The comparisons were still hard, but Harrison was starting to get exhausted now. He was also wondering what on earth kind of NYC traffic must be going on for help to take this long to get here. It did not help Harrison's worries that when the AED analyzed her heart for a second time, it didn't shock her.

“No shock advised. Resume CPR.”

“Paramedic ETA three minutes. You're doing great sir.” the dispatcher said, clearly understanding Harrison’s fear.

But Harirson was already crying by now. His compressions became harder and faster with desperation, not even registering the second cracking sound her chest made. He was not even counting anymore. Not out loud like how he and the dispatcher were doing before. He kept repeating words like, “You can do this,” and “Just breathe Eli”, and “Please don’t die.” When he gave her rescue breaths, Harrison's tears fell on Elise's face like she was in a rainstorm. 

“Do not touch the victim. Analyzing rhythm.” Harrison moved away again, and waited for the device's next command. “Shock advised, charging.”

“Please come back Eli..” Harrison sobbed. “I love you so much Elise. Please…I want to see you again.” The AED sounded its alarm, and Harrison hit the button to send the shock into Elise’s heart. She twitched again, made that same gasping noise…then her body began stirring. 

It was not a seizure. One of Harrison's fathers had seizures when he was little, but this was not that at all. It looked as if Elise was trying to wake up  after having a long nap. Her head was moving from side to side, as if confused. Harrison reached for her neck again, hardly daring to believe it.

“flutter….flutter..thump..Thump..Thump..Thump..”

“Eli!” Harrison said, putting his hands on her shoulders and shaking her gently. “Are you ok? Can you hear me?”

Elise's head turned left, right, left, right. Her face made a grimmice, as if in pain. Then she opened her eyes, took a huge lung full of hair, and started coughing as if she had come up from a deep pool. It sounded like the most beautiful thing in the world to Harrison. He had done it. Elise was alive.

“Roll her on her side now. Great job. Paramedics will be here any moment.” 

“Thank you..” Harrison said weakly. He rolled her onto her side, and moved in to hold one of her hands tightly in his. She took it, but not as strongly as she normally did. Her breathing sounded ragged and raspy, but it was strong and steady now. A far cry better than the weird gasping noises she was making while unconscious. “Elise…how do you feel?”

“Harri?” said Elise, her voice dry. She tried to position herself to where she was almost sitting up, but her arms shook, and she staggered slightly. She felt her chest, noticing that she was no longer wearing her pajama shirt. She touched the electrode on her breast gingerly, then felt the bruised spot along her ribs and she fell back to the ground in pain. Harrison caught her before she could hit her head. “What..what happened to me? I thought I just fell asleep.”

“I’m just so relieved you're ok!” Harrison said with a sob, hugging Elise close. He could hear sirens outside his hotel window.

“Did something…happen to me?” 

“Whats most important right this second is that you just stay awake…and alive..”

Elise’s eyes widened. “I’m guessing…this means that we're not going to the play tomorrow.

Harrison laughed despite his tears. Elise's sense of humor being the same was surely a step in the right direction. “Hadestown can wait. Your life can’t…I love you so much Elise. Don’t scare me like that again. And especially not on our honeymoon.”

“I’ll do my best.” Elise said, snuggling closer into Harri’s arms. 

Harrison's fear lifted bit by bit, as the paramedics came in, asked him questions, and moved Elise onto a stretcher. On the way to the hospital, still holding Elise's hand, he thought, “I’m sure she will be ok. We may not be out of the woods yet, but the trees are starting to thin, and we’re starting to see the light  at the end of the path.”

Nichole Cpr at Girlfriend's Home

Her panties were removed but...🥵

Alice is brought back

For @resusfrenchie ❤️👑

I managed to get you cardiac pacing⚡️

the newest of 2026 in the time we all have no choice to watch ridiculous shows like the pitt (the shit) with all male patient models with no act of defib just lay and act dead because of less wage for producers this one is gold and hope to get more in this year

Credits to: Digital02

"I don't know what you did differently tonight," I gasped, arching off the mattress as his hands trailed lower, "but don't stop."

The bedside lamp cast elongated shadows across his shoulders as he leaned down, murmuring something about the new pressure point techniques he'd learned. His breath hit my neck—warm, uneven—while his fingers worked with precision that made my vision blur at the edges. Every nerve felt live-wired, electric in a way that wasn't just pleasure but something closer to revelation.

Then came the hitch. My laughter dissolved into a choked inhale as my ribs seized mid-arc, a white-hot spike driving straight through my sternum. His hands froze, but the aftershocks of whatever he'd just done kept ricocheting through me, pleasure and pain indistinguishable now. "Wait," I managed, but my voice sounded underwater, distant even to myself.

The room tilted—no, I was tilting, collapsing backward against sweat-damp sheets while my pulse stuttered like a faulty ignition. His face swam into view, pupils blown wide with concern, lips forming words that didn't register. Something was wrong. Not the good kind of wrong, not the breathless surrender we'd chased a thousand times before. My fingers scrabbled at his wrist, but the connection felt muffled, like touching him through layers of wool.

Some detached part of my brain noted the clinical details: the way my left arm went numb first, the metallic taste flooding my tongue, the absurdity of dying mid-climax. His palm cradled my jaw, thumb smearing away tears I hadn't realized I'd shed. "Look at me," he demanded, except his voice cracked halfway through, and that more than anything made terror coil in my gut.

Then his mouth covered mine—not kissing, not really—and his lungs forced air down my throat in sharp, rhythmic bursts. Our teeth clicked together with each exhale, his breath tasting like spearmint and adrenaline. My chest rose mechanically under his hands, ribs expanding like bellows he operated by sheer will. Oxygen burned through me, raw and chemical, nothing like the slow intoxication of his lips on my neck moments before.

The bedside lamp flickered—or maybe my eyelids did—casting his silhouette in stop-motion flashes: the strained tendons in his neck, the way his shoulders hunched forward like he could physically will my heart into beating. Distantly, I registered the mattress dipping as he straddled my hips, fingers digging into my sternum with CPR precision. Each compression sent a jolt through me, pain and pleasure now twisted into something grotesque, my body convulsing under him in ways that had nothing to do with climax.

Somewhere beyond the roaring in my ears, a phone clattered to the floor. His voice fractured into syllables I couldn’t reassemble, though the vibration of his chest against mine transmitted the panic clear enough. The smell of sex and sweat turned acrid with the copper-tang of bitten lips, his breath hot and frantic against my cheek as he alternated between compressions and forcing air into my lungs. My vision tunneled, the shadows at the edges writhing like living things, until all I could see was the vein pulsing wildly at his temple.

Then—impossibly—his palm flattened over my sternum, not pushing but holding, as if he could reach through skin and bone to cradle my stuttering heart in his hands. The warmth of him seeped into muscle, deeper, until I swore I felt fingertips graze the very chambers that’d gone still. A sound tore from his throat, half-growl half-prayer, and suddenly my ribs were expanding without his mouth on mine, drawn by some invisible tether between his inhale and mine. My lungs burned with the borrowed breath, each gasp syncing to the desperate roll of his hips against my thigh, as if his body couldn’t stop chasing the rhythm that’d nearly killed me.

Colors bled back in nauseating swirls—the peach blush of our ruined sheets, the fluorescent smear of streetlights through half-drawn blinds—but his face stayed locked in focus. Sweat dripped from his brow onto my parted lips, salt-sharp and real, mingling with the spit he’d forced down my throat. His hands shook now, thumbs pressing into the hollow of my throat to check for a pulse that fluttered like moth wings against glass. “Breathe with me,” he ordered, except it wasn’t a command anymore, just a ragged plea, his chest rising and falling in exaggerated heaves I mimicked involuntarily. My fingernails carved crescents into his biceps, clinging to the proof of his pulse where mine faltered.

The door burst open with a crack of splintering wood—too fast for him to have called them, unless he’d screamed for help while I was busy not-dying. Uniformed bodies flooded the room, but the paramedics froze for a heartbeat at the scene: us tangled in the wreckage of pleasure and panic, his hips still pressed flush to mine, fingers interlaced over my sternum like lovers mid-vow rather than medic and patient. The lead EMT recovered first, barking orders about defibrillator pads and adenosine as she shouldered past my husband with professional detachment. He didn’t move, not even when they tore me from his grip, his hands hovering in the air like he could still feel the shape of my ribs under his palms.

The paddles hit my bare chest cold enough to burn, but the jolt that followed wasn’t electricity—it was memory. A staccato flicker behind my eyelids: his mouth on my inner thigh twenty minutes ago, the exact pressure he’d used where femoral artery met groin, the way he’d hummed against my skin like he was tuning an instrument. My back arched off the gurney as synapses fired in wrong directions, pain and ecstasy short-circuiting together until I couldn’t tell if I was screaming from the defibrillation or the aftershocks of whatever he’d done to me.

Voices overlapped in clinical fragments—“VFib,” “no pulse for 90 seconds,” “possible vagal response”—but beneath them ran his whisper, raw as open nerve endings: “Look at me, just look at me.” They’d shoved him into the hall, but I could see him through the doorway, palms pressed flat against the jamb like he could hold the whole collapsing world up by sheer force. The second shock came, and this time the pain had taste—burnt almonds and battery acid—while my hips jerked involuntarily, slick thighs sticking to the gurney’s vinyl. A paramedic cursed, slapping away the hand I didn’t realize I’d raised toward my own chest, where his fingerprints still throbbed like brand marks.

Time splintered. The cardiac monitor’s flatline tone stretched into a single endless note, but beneath it, my skin remembered the exact cadence of his thrusts when my heart had stuttered to a stop—how his rhythm hadn’t faltered even as mine did. A needle pierced my arm, icy liquid flooding veins that’d been molten minutes before. “Epinephrine,” someone announced, like I cared what chemical cocktail they used to counterfeit the adrenaline his teeth on my collarbone used to spark. The defibrillator charged again with a high-pitched whine, but all I could hear was the hitch in his breathing from the hallway, the way it synced with the spasms racking my body as if we were still tangled in the same ruinous rhythm.

“Ninety-seven seconds without spontaneous circulation,” the EMT muttered, wiping gel from my chest with a rough swipe that erased his fingerprints. I wanted to laugh—or scream—because how dare they measure my silence in seconds when his mouth had stolen whole eternities from me before tonight? My eyelids fluttered, heavy with drugs that couldn’t dull the memory of his palm over my sternum, pressing not just into flesh but through it, as if he’d found some backdoor into my bloodstream and flooded it with himself. The paddles came down. This time, the shock tasted like his name.

Somewhere beyond the fluorescents, a monitor beeped in reluctant triplicate. The paramedics exhaled collectively—a sound I felt before hearing, their relief vibrating through the gurney’s thin padding. My fingers twitched toward my throat where his thumbs had left bruises disguised as love bites. The lead EMT shot a glance at the doorway where he stood haloed in emergency lights, his silhouette sharp enough to cut glass. “Sir,” she began, but he was already moving, stepping over the shattered doorframe like it was our threshold again, his hands outstretched not for permission but absolution.

Violet’s heart skipped a beat when she read the text message that she had been waiting for all day. She felt a surge of adrenaline and rushed to her room to grab her purse and her keys. She had just enough time to get to the address before her appointment.

She asked the guard at the desk where the office was, and he gesture to the bank of elevators off to his left. He told her to go to the third floor and turn right the room would be directly in front of her. Room 325. She thanked him and made her way to the elevator. She found it hard to contain her excitement. Her heart was pumping hard. She placed a hand on her chest to try to steady herself. No need to get all worked up. It’s just another interview. Hopefully this time she would pass and be able to move on to the next level of her career.

She found it hard to hide her nervousness as she approached room number 325. Has she entered the door she made her way to the receptionist at the counter and identified herself. The receptionist told her to have a seat for a moment and the doctor would see her in just a few minutes. This made Violet wonder what was going on. The text message said nothing about a doctors visit. She sat down in the waiting room and settled with her phone until a tall older gentleman in a white coat came out to see her. He asked her name and also to follow him.

Violet could feel her heart pumping harder. She was full on nervous now. This was totally unexpected. The doctor led her into an exam room where there was a table, a gown, a chair, a monitor, and a number of different medical devices. “Could I ask what you’re doing?” she asked the doctor. “ You’re going to be working in a high stress environment. Your employer has asked us to give you a stress test to make sure that you are physically capable of handling the stress. We will be monitoring your heart rate, your blood pressure, your oxygenation and you will be on an EKG monitor throughout the test. There’s no need to worry all the results will be given to you to give to your primary care and a copy will be sent to your employer. I’m confident you will do very well so let’s begin shall we?” he said confidently. “ I’m going to step out of the room for a moment to give you a chance to change into the gown and then I will be back to begin the test. I will see you in a few moments.”

Violet changed into the gown and tied it around her waist. She climbed up onto the exam table and began to look around at all the equipment. She saw several different pieces of equipment, some of which looked like surgical masks. She began to get very nervous. She could feel her heart pumping harder with every second the doctor was not in the room. She thought about grabbing her clothes and running when the doctor returned. This time when he came in, he was wearing examination gloves and a paper mask. He handed Violet a hair tie and asked her if she would put her blonde hair in a ponytail. She did as she was told and waited for further instructions. The doctor took his flashlight out of his pocket and examined her eyes, checking her pupils and noting their rich, dark brown color. He gently untied the top of her gown and pulled it off of her shoulders, asking her to hold it up over her breasts. Then placed an ECG lead on each of her tanned shoulders and pulled the gown up and tied it back for her. He then placed one more ECG lead on her left abdomen once the leads were in place. He turned on the monitor and the room filled with the beeping that corresponded to each beat of her heart. He felt the pulse at each one of her wrists and at both carotids. Her heart rate was 86 bpm. Her ECG looked very good and completely normal. She was still anxious, but not as much as she was. Now she was more curious as to what he was going to do. She flushed slightly when he brought out the stethoscope and began to listen to her heart. He saw the slight increase in her pulse rate reflected on the monitor as he listened to each valve and her lungs too. “It sounds like you have a very strong heart, Miss Violet. I think you’re going to do very well in our little test today.”

He then wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her right arm and told her to uncross her legs and place her hand on his shoulder. The cuff was a manual so he placed his stethoscope just below the cuff where her arm folded and pumped it up. The cuff got really tight and just when she was about to protest, he slowly started deflating it listening intently to the sound of her blood coursing through her arm. “145/88, pulse is 90. You’re fine, young lady. Your heart is functioning perfectly. Your bp is slightly elevated but that’s to be expected. We’ll keep an eye on that once we get started. Now, I’m going to start an IV, draw some blood and begin your full exam, alright? Your first test will be a treadmill test. I’ll have you walk, jog and run on flat and inclined settings. Your heart rate, bp and oxygen levels will be monitored electronically from now on.”, he said as he switched the bp cuff to an electronic unit and placed a pulse-ox device on her finger. “92 bpm and 100% on room air. Well done. Let’s get you over to the treadmill. “

Violet felt a deep surge of excitement as the doctor helped her up and walked her to the treadmill. The beeping of the ECG seemed louder as she stood across the belt. Her hands gripped the rail. Her pulse throbbing in her ears as she waited to start walking. The doctor placed a large black mask over her nose and mouth which he tightened securely over her head and behind her neck. She could see the patient monitor in front of her. The peaks of the white line coinciding with each loud beep. Her rate was 94 bpm, her blood pressure was 148/88 and her oxygen level was still at 100%. The mask smelled of old rubber tires but her breathing was not obstructed so she inhaled and exhaled normally. Soon the doctor turned on the treadmill and the humming of the motor was replaced by the whining of the belt under Violet’s feet as she began walking.

The doctor felt Violet’s radial pulse as she slowly started her walk. She felt her pulse thrust against his fingers. Her heart skipped. “Hmm.”, he muttered. She continued walking as he upped the pace from 1 mile per hour to 1.5 mph. She began to feel her muscles starting to work. Her ECG waves were much taller and closer together. Her bpm was reading 102. She could feel her heart pumping hard against her chest wall and she liked the feeling. The doctor was pressing his stethoscope against her chest. He was listening to each valve under the strain of exercise. The slight pressure on her sternum excited her more. She could feel every pulse surge through her body. She completely missed the fact that he had turned up the speed and she was jogging now. She was beginning to sweat. The exertion was starting to manifest itself. Her heart was booming in her ears, pulse-ox was reading 145 bpm at 95% oxygen. The bp reading was 150/89. Her heart was really working. Her breathing was beginning to strain. She almost felt like the air was thinner. Her oxygen level didn’t read it, but she really felt like she was jogging at a really high elevation.

The doctor moved his stethoscope over her chest, listening to each valve as he pushed her harder by raising the incline or upping the speed on the treadmill. Violet’s heart responded perfectly up to this point but now he made a change. The tube that lead from Violet’s mask led to a Y valve. Right now, the valve was open so she could breathe room air freely. He slowly changed the flow from room air to a large rubber air bladder. This bladder started to move in and out as Violet inhaled and exhaled into that bag. At first, her oxygen levels would be stable but the more she exerted herself, the more air she would need and each breath she took would deplete the oxygen levels in the bag by a little each time until she was breathing nothing but pure carbon dioxide.

It didn’t take long for Violet to notice the effects. Her chest began to get tight, her heart was pounding so hard that it hurt. She could feel her pulsing veins and arteries beginning to ache. The ECG showed her heart rate at 171 bpm, blood pressure 188/99. Her oxygen level had dropped to 88%. She could feel the pressure of the increased workload on her heart. Dull, throbbing pain began to follow each beat. Her heart skipped hard, pumped twice weakly the stumbled regaining rhythm. The lack of oxygen forcing her into an irregular rhythm. She gasped and heaved for breath and was caught by the doctor as she fell off the treadmill from the dizzyness and lack of oxygen. The ECG sounded a two toned alarm, one for her depleted oxygen level, now at 72%, but for her heart rate and irregular rhythm. The tracing showed one or two normal beats, a series of hard thumps and several long pauses. The doctor pulled off the mask and lay Violet in the exam table. He quickly assessed her condition and began to listen to her irregular heart.

Lub-lub dub, lub-lub dub, lub-dub, luh-luh-lub dub, lub dub, lub, lub dub.

A few seconds later her heart threw a series of hard thumps.

Luh, luh, luh, luh, luh, luh.

Then finally Lub-DUB, Lub-DUB!

She gasped at every hard surge of her angry heart. She clutched her chest, as the doctor covered her mouth and nose with a green clear mask that hissed. At first she fought him but he managed to put it over her face and her head began to immediately clear. Her heart rate dropped from 203 bpm and 64 oxygen to 166 bpm and 88% oxygen in just seconds. Violet looked at the doctor as he listened to her heart rate dropping and her blood pressure stabilizing. The ECG beeping relaxed and her steady heart rate once again returned. The doctor once again checked her pupils and felt her carotid pulse. His fingers hovered on the artery for a moment as he looked at her. “So, did I pass?”, she asked.

“That one? Yes. But you do have one more. “

Violet’s heart rate jumped as he injected a clear liquid into her IV port. She felt a strong surge of warmth wash throughout her body. Her limbs went completely limp. She couldn’t move anything below her neck. The ECG read 80 bpm just before he injected her and now she felt her heart begin to race painfully. She became fully aware of her heart muscle contracting and crushing her blood through bounding arteries. Her lungs heaving for air as her heart pumped harder and faster as the drug raced through her body.

The doctor listened intently to her heart valves. Her youth was her advantage but this test was designed to push the heart and lungs to failure. Violet moaned and groaned and her tortured heart raged in her chest cavity. Her pulse surging from 80 bpm to 190 bpm and holding. Her ECG looked perfect with no artifacts from the first test but Violet felt waves of pain all down her back and shoulders. She groaned, certain her heart was going to burst from her chest.

The doctor watched as Violet’s sternum thumped prominently with every beat as he assessed her condition. Any second now, he felt that she would arrest but her stubborn, youthful heart refused to fail. Finally, he decided to take matters into his own hands literally. He took off Violet’s oxygen mask and covered her nose and mouth, blocking her airway completely. Violet tried to scream but she couldn’t move to stop him. She felt the force of his hands blocking her nose and mouth. Cold adrenaline rushed through her body as the realization that she could very well die hit her heart like a defibrillator. Her chest bucked and heaved unable to move any air. The heart monitor showed a heart rate of 200 for a brief moment before Violet’s back arched and dropped reflexively as her heart beat stopped dead.

The doctor let go the second he heard the scream of asystole. The last bit of air escaping from her blue lips hissed out of her mouth. Her dark brown eyes staring blindly toward the ceiling. He felt for her carotid pulse, nothing. He listened to her chest and heard no heart movement. He rubbed her sternum hard. Nothing. Flatline on the monitor. He leaped into action. Grabbing an air bag from a tray, he tilted Violet’s head back and placed the mask over her mouth and nose. He held it tight to her face and squeezed it hard twice giving her two good breaths of air. He then reached high above his head and slammed his fist into the center of her chest. Her body moved with the effort. Flatline on the screen. He hit her chest again. Nothing. He locked his hands together and began to compress her chest. His hard, deep thrusts pushing her sternum down crushing her still heart between it and her spine pushed what small amount of blood still in her heart out into her arteries. Her head bobbed, her chest caved in, her stomach bulged with every compression. He would only stop long enough to give her two breaths every 20 or 30 pumps. His hope was to push enough blood to her brain to trigger it to cause her heart to fibrillate. If he could cause that, he could restart her heart with an electrical surge from a defibrillator. Each time he compressed her chest, he watched her neck. Her tanned skin made it easy to see a small pulse in her neck surge with every push. He glanced at the monitor and notice some small waves in the line, he kept pumping and finally got her to fibrillate. He gave her two more full breaths as he pulled a pair of paddles off his patient monitor and flipped a switch to activate the charge. He then grabbed a tube of green gel and coated each paddle liberally. He then rubbed them together, evenly spreading the gel all over the metal pads. The machine whined as he pressed the charge button. He slid the first paddle under the gown through the neck hole and placed it tight over her right breast. He then lifted the left side of the gown up so he could press the paddle under her left breast. He checked the charge and listened for the tone. Once he heard it he pressed a button on each paddle at the same time shocking Violet’s quivering heart. Her chest jumped, heart contracted, limbs shook but her heart remained in fibrillation. He reset the paddles, rubbed them together and placed them back where they were. This time he upped the charge to 200 joules from the first shock at 100. The whine built up and beeped its readiness. Violet’s body jumped, her back arched and her arms and legs flopped. She groaned loudly and gasped coughing hard as her heart bucked and surged back into rhythm. Her pulse returned, bounding under his fingers on her neck. Violet’s heart rate leveled off at 60 bpm. He returned the oxygen mask to her face allowing her to breathe freely. “What the fuck?”, she groaned. “No more. Please.”

The doctor smiled behind his mask. “You’re all done, Violet. You’re the perfect candidate. You have a very strong, powerful and vigorous heart. I have no doubt that you will be able to handle the job physically with ease. Now. I’m going to give you a blanket and let you rest for awhile. I’m going to check your vitals here and there and in an hour or two, I’ll send you home. Sound good? Your heart rate is 66, blood pressure is 141/76 and you’re back to 100% on room air. How do you feel?” “Like an elephant kicked me in the chest. Oh my God.”, she said. “You’ll have some bruising and some redness around the paddle sites, but you should be completely fine in a day or two. Thank you, Miss. Violet. See you soon,