Shantanu Rai

The patient’s words could not have come at a better time.

I had just finished admitting a 67-year-old man to my hospital service. He had gone into cardiac arrest while playing the piano at church, was resuscitated, and then transferred to my hospital for bypass surgery. He was acutely ill. As is common, he likely aspirated when he lost a pulse, so needed to be intubated, and just hours earlier