Pushed through the ER entrance on a gurney. A voice directed the medics to a treatment bay. Hands removed my shirt and attached wires to my chest and finger. Monitors stood at my head, passing judgments. I eyed the fast heart rate and low oxygen level in my blood as if the numbers belonged to someone else. In Providence, Rhode Island, where I'm an ER doc, these monitors are my allies. Now, I was in a North Carolina ER, sweat-soaked, breathing hard, caked in vomit, and my scalp a bloody mess.
