ED coping mechanisms are a joke

i’ve been an ed tech for two years and i’m training as an rn now. the ed where i practice has this culture where you just move onto the next thing and nobody talks about or works through their trauma.

a couple months ago one of my coworkers cardiac arrested while driving and came in and we had to attempt to resuscitate our own coworker for an hour. we got rosc but she had an anoxic brain injury.

we had a balloon releasing ceremony for her on the heli pad and some of her coworkers from her old unit were there. i’ll never forget how her old coworkers were around each other, crying, hugging, supporting each other. meanwhile the ed employees were standing around joking that we should have sent her up some cigarettes. no one talks about her anymore. it’s like no one can show any weakness

i think we all have this habit where we just send all our traumatic things down into the pits of our brain to try not to think about again