The Call Light

They were turning the old ICU into offices. I hadn’t planned to return, as I had left this place years ago. But, someone sent out a staff email about the renovation, and curiosity has a cruel way of digging its nails into old scars.

The corridors now seemed smaller, and the flickering fluorescent lights overhead continued to cast their sickly yellow glow, creating long, tired shadows across the waxed floor. All the equipment that used to line the hallways was gone, monitors had been removed, the crash carts cleared out, but one thing hadn’t changed.

The call light for Bed 7 kept blinking, pulsing slowly and deliberately—like a heartbeat on a monitor. Lub-dub, Lub-dub, almost as if it was a reminder, a ghost tapping inside my mind.

I opened the sliding door to the room as if I expected someone to be there. No one else seemed to notice the light. The workmen were laughing over coffee, and a nurse from my cohort passed me with a box of files, never even glancing at the room. But I couldn’t look away.

Bed 7. Mr. Jacoby.

The name came back before I had time to stop it. So did the image, grey skin stretched over bone, eyes that no longer focused but still begged for relief. He’d come in after a massive MI, coding twice in the ER before they got him up to the critical care unit. He should have been a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR), but there was no paperwork. There was no documentation of any conversation about what the patient would want. Just a distant son in Arizona who wouldn’t answer his phone, and a neighbor who swore he wanted “everything done."

So, we did everything: IV lines in both groins, a tube down his windpipe for intubation, and vasopressors like a chemical storm rushing through fragile veins to keep his blood pressure stable. We used a balloon pump to help perfuse the delicate arteries that fed his heart, even though he was ninety-three. I remember his hand clutching the railing on day two, as he tried to pull the tube out in his delirium. His body fought us, and we fought back. I was instructed to place a central line in his neck for more IV access. I didn’t want to, but I did it anyway.

He never got a chance to speak. Once the decision to intubate was made, he was sedated. His skin was so thin and fragile, it broke down no matter how often the nurses turned him. By day five, I knew we were just keeping his heart beating, and I hoped he wasn’t still in there anymore.

Except I think he was, and I believe he hated us for it.

I stepped into the room now, all these years later. The bed was gone, the walls were stripped bare, but the air still carried something heavy. I could smell Mr. Jacoby, or maybe I sensed death, or maybe I just thought I did. The call light blinked above where the headboard had been.

Ping. Ping. Ping. I automatically reached for the button, but there was nothing to press. No cord, just that small red light embedded in the drywall that should’ve been rewired years ago.

“He’s still here,” I said aloud, half to myself. The silence that followed didn’t bring me comfort. I sat on the floor, back against the wall, knees pulled up like I used to during night shifts when I couldn’t handle another code. I thought I had buried Mr. Jacoby. I know I wrote the death summary. I believed we had both moved on. But something about the way that light blinked made me wonder if he ever truly left this room.

His son finally returned our call, and the best he could say was “Just do what you think is best.” Which basically meant we could do nothing but continue the care we were offering. When his heart stopped, the code was performed according to standards, but it was short-lived. A couple of shocks, some morphine and epinephrine, compressions—one, two, three, four…and so on. We did a few rounds and, mercifully, stopped after that.

I turned off the balloon pump. I watched as his oxygen saturation declined and his heart rate dropped to zero on the monitor. His death should have been peaceful. It wasn’t.

Just before he died, his eyes opened briefly. Not fully, just a flicker, a flash of something human and terrified. He looked straight at me or maybe through me. Then he was gone.

I close my eyes now, listening. Not for footsteps or voices, but for the sound I couldn’t stop hearing for weeks afterward. That dam call light. That soft, robotic chime echoing through an overworked nervous system. Sometimes it appeared in dreams. Sometimes in the shower. Sometimes, at the bedside of another patient, when I reached for their hand and wondered if I was helping or prolonging their suffering.

Mr. Jacoby became the symbol of moral injury for me. The patient who couldn’t say no. The one I couldn’t save because saving him would have meant letting him die.

Now, sitting in this room where the past still echoes off the drywall, I notice something else. It feels like a breath. Not mechanical or labored. Just… present.

I open my eyes, but the room is empty. Still, I sense a presence. A chill runs down my spine, not the horror-movie kind—more like the kind that hints at unfinished business.

I take a slow breath and speak aloud. “I’m sorry.” Those words feel small and inadequate. But they are true.

I’m sorry we kept going. We thought we were helping. We couldn’t stop. We had no way to stop.

The call light stops blinking. I blink, too. I'm not sure if I saw it right, but yes, the red glow is gone. I see only drywall, and I hear only silence.

There is a sudden, strange, almost imperceptible shift in my chest, as if a window opened deep inside, and something long-trapped finally flew out.

I leave the room, not exactly in peace, but somehow, I feel lighter. I believe in the ghosts of memory and unfinished stories—things we carry because they asked us to remember.

Maybe Mr. Jacoby's ghost lingered because he needed closure. Maybe he was simply waiting for someone to say, "I’m sorry."

Epilogue: There’s a word for those ghosts in my memory. They are called moral injury. This word describes what happens when your hands do something your heart knows is wrong, but the monitor, the team, and the law say “you must”. These are the moral challenges that healthcare providers face daily.