Sydney D Hart

The Dying of the Light

Dylan Thomas penned the often-quoted lines “Do not go gentle into that good night…Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” As a Registered Nurse I often participated in the rage that was the battle between life and death, and let there be no doubt, Cardio-pulmonary Resuscitation is a brutal battle that, like most battles, occasionally blurs the line between winners and losers. I have broken the brittle ribs of a barrel-chested emphysema patient, a common and not unforeseen by-product of CPR in that population. I have assaulted the frail body of an elderly lady even though she begged to be allowed to die in peace--because her family wanted everything possible done to “save” her. Both died, the most common outcome of CPR in adults in my day. But nothing quite spoke to me as much as a case early in my career: