X-File 02: The angel of death

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WE share with you once again a Hospital X-File from our associate, Solomon W. Spyke, MD:

“They called her the Angel of Death, even though she did not look a bit angelic. She was allegedly in her late sixties, a frail five-foot frame with gray hair and a hunched gait. She always wore a scarf around her head, even indoors; some say she wore glasses. She frequently visited the Surgical Wards, Wards 2 and 4. The veteran nurses knew her by sight. They would quickly turn her away as soon as she set foot in the wards, for they knew what the harmless-looking old lady could do.

“At the very least, she was a ‘jinx.’ About once every two months, she would come to either Ward 2 or 4 looking for a certain patient. Most of the time, there was no patient of that name. Sometimes, the patient was no longer there. She never got to see any of the patients she was looking for. Nevertheless, she would hang around the wards for several minutes. At first, the nurses let her. Until they realized that every time she came, a patient would go toxic in the ward.

‘That was the last time she was seen; although, it is possible that she still visits the wards now and then. The veterans who recognize her are already gone, so no one can really tell.’

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“Once, she stood in front of a patient’s bed in Ward 4 (back when Ward 4 was still co-ed). The patient was taking a bath at the time, and so the bed was vacant. After a few minutes, the old lady left. Soon after, the patient came out of the bathroom, walked to his bed, and suddenly fell to the floor. Cardiac arrest, cause unknown. This happened to a healthy forty-year-old male who was just cleared by Internal Medicine to undergo an elective procedure.

“Other times, she would walk in the middle of the ward. A few minutes later, watchers or nurses would find a patient arrested in bed (as in cardiac arrest) or in respiratory distress. Nobody could tell how many times this happened, but it happened often enough. It got to the point that the duty nurses would stop her at the ward entrance when they saw her coming.

“She did get through one last time, however. It was in 1994, sometime around July to September (the author was directly involved when this happened). By that time, Ward 2 was already the Male Ward and Ward 4 was the Female Ward.

“As the duty nurses were going about their business, they suddenly found the old lady in the middle of Ward 4, staring at a patient. It just so happened that the patient she was staring at was under close monitoring, so the nurses tried to hustle her away before she worked her ‘magic.’ As they were pushing/pulling her out, she asked them, “Nandito ba si Minerva X?” The nurses did not recognize the name and replied so.

“E, sa kabilang ward?

“Panay lalake lang doon, lola. Wala siguro doon,” they answered.

“Finally convinced, the ‘lola’ left; unfortunately, that was when the trouble started.

“As soon as she was gone, one of the patients in Ward 4 went into respiratory distress. It was not the one she was staring at, but the one whose bed she was standing next to at the opposite side of the hall. After a few minutes, the patient went into cardiac arrest. “Code!!!” the call rang throughout the ward.

“Five minutes later, in the other ward, Ward 2, a Neurosurgery resident was checking on his patient and found the patient was not breathing. Stethoscope to the chest … nothing.  “Code!!!” in Ward 2. While this was going on, the Urology residents were doing their rounds in Ward 2. They were talking, shaking their heads at the commotion. Two codes at the same time. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Malas.” All of a sudden, one of their own patients complained of difficulty in breathing and then quickly became unresponsive. When they checked the heart rate and the blood pressure, there was none. “Code!!!” for the third time.

“As could be imagined, things were falling apart very fast; and, bad luck seemed to pile up. The Code Team from the Medical ICU, unable to handle three at the same time, asked for reinforcements from the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit. “Unfortunately, the elevator was stuck, forcing the PACU team to carry their heavy equipment down the stairs. It was very uncommon for this to happen in the surgical wards where the only pre-op patients are elective ones and the critical post-op patients are kept at the Surgical ICU.

“When the smoke from the battlefield finally cleared, Surgery lost one patient dead, two were put on ventilators and transferred to the Surgical ICU. It was the neurosurgery patient who died. “Strangely, the patient was female, the only one in the Male Ward. Neurosurgery ran out of room, so they borrowed the only available bed. Her name was Minerva. Some people said that the old lady also got the family name right.

“That was the last time she was seen; although, it is possible that she still visits the wards now and then. The veterans who recognize her are already gone, so no one can really tell. Perhaps she is still responsible for the occasional ‘toxicity’ that occurs in Wards 2 and 4. Who knows?”

Author

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