Rob Johnson

This isn't really a ghost story or anything like that. Just sort of an interestingly weird thing that happened. I used to work as an orderly at a community hospital in the upper peninsula of Michigan in the early 80s. One summer day, an ambulance brought in a man in his early 40s who had been water skiing, let his tips go under, slammed into the water and was brought out in cardiac arrest. I got called down to assist and was assigned to do chest compressions. The patient was intubated in the ER, and had been in arrest for probably 30-40 minutes. So, I start doing compressions and after a couple minutes he starts making the "waking up with a tube in his throat" noises. So, I get off the chest, and he's in this pulseless idioventricular rhythm and goes out. Back on the chest and after a couple minutes, he opens his eyes and looks around. I stop CPR, and he goes out again. I start compressions again, and after about 10 compressions he opens his eyes, looks at me, and reaches up and grabs on tightly to my arms! So, naturally, I stop compressions and boom, out he goes again. All during this time he's been in a pulseless idioventricular rhythm. This happened two more times, with him waking up and looking around until I stopped compressions, then him going out again. Eventually, he stopped coming around and never regained consiousness and died. I was 19 or 20 at the time. That's one of the weirder things I've experienced.