Imagine going into work one morning and on your way through the parking lot you see a man passed out cold in his car. Fortunately, you work at a hospital so the response is pretty immediate when you report that there is a man who appears to have died in his car.

Doctors, nurses, and paramedics from the Emergency Department run into the parking lot with a gurney, IV fluids, defibrillators- the entire crash cart- and a code is called! But when they get out to the car that the dead man was supposed to be in, he is no where to be found!

Well this happened to Neil last week. But if you didn’t guess, he was NOT the one to report the dead man in the car, and he was not one of the medical staff responding to the code blue.  No.  No, Neil was the victim in the code blue!

Before work, he likes to get there a little early to read for a few minutes. But that morning his lack of sleep had caught up with him and he fell asleep before going into work. Someone noticed and reported the emergency but somewhere between the good Samaritan’s discovery and the St. Mark’s emergency team’s response,  Neil had woke up and went inside to work.  When the paramedics came out to the car the “victim”  was gone.

So while I am glad that someone was paying enough attention and cared enough to make the emergency call, just remember to knock on the window to make sure the person is not just sleeping, if you ever come across someone passed out in their car!

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