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beckresuscpr · 21 days

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Slime Attack

Little resus story set in Stardew Valley.

Harvey sipped his third cup of coffee for the day and then continued fiddling with his pen. The clinic was slow again. Nothing exciting happened in the valley, which was good most of the time. He had decided long ago that a life of excitement and stress wasn’t for him. He was cut of a different cloth, one perfect for 10am appointments with crotchety old men and yearly checkups on the same twenty villagers.

(Though, on some warm, summer days when Harvey would look to the sky and see planes dipping in and out of the clouds he couldn’t help but wish that that life was for him. How different, how strange, how exciting would it be to be like them. So much more than just a simple, boring small-town doctor.)

Harvey finished his third cup of coffee. He looked up from the front desk and stared at the empty waiting room. He sighed and turned towards the coffee maker for the fourth time today.

The door slammed open. “Harvey! Harvey!” Harvey jumped and dropped his mug. He turned and saw Maru stumbling through the door, a body hanging limply off her shoulder. The Farmer?!

Maru and the Farmer crashed to the ground, Maru on her hands and knees. The Farmer flopped to the tile limp as a bag of grain. Harvey rushed over and rolled her over. Her head was coated in a thick, slightly opaque green liquid. He ran a thumb across her freckled cheek then pinched the substance between his fingers. Slime.

“The mine’s elevator! She was semi-conscious when I found her. On the way here she passed out!” Maru crawled to the girl’s side and brushed slime coated hair from her forehead.

Harvey felt dread sink into the pit of his stomach. He pressed one hand to the farmer’s chest and hovered his cheek over her lips, waiting to feel the rise of her chest, a puff of breath against his cheek. Seconds ticked by. The Farmer was deadly still. Harvey placed two fingers against her neck, then breathed a sigh of relief. “She’s in complete respiratory arrest, but she still has a pulse.” Harvey hauled the girl into his arms, stumbling slightly under her deadweight. “Get the defibrillator and meet me in the exam room!”

Harvey backed into the swinging doors of the exam room and laid the Farmer down onto the table. He opened her mouth and saw that it was completely full of slime. He swiped her mouth with two fingers and flicked globs of the fluid onto the floor. Once her mouth was for the most part cleared, he took a deep breath, pinched her nose, and sealed his lips over hers, not expecting her to get a full breath but testing to see if her airway was clear. He watched her chest from the corner of his eyes as he expelled the breath into her mouth, cheeks puffing out uselessly. Her chest was still.

Harvey straightened back up, spitting traces of slime from his mouth and cringing at the earthy, algae taste. He wiped slime from his mustache and shivered. Her airway was still completely blocked. How much slime did she swallow?

Harvey straddled the Farmer’s thighs and thrust his hands in the middle of her stomach. It felt slightly bloated, firm under his hands. He pressed in and up, watching as her head rolled to the side. A small amount of slime trickled out of her nose. Harvey pressed harder. Her body rocked. More slime fell from her mouth and nose, leaving a small puddle of it on the table. Again, then again, until Harvey was panting from exertion. He swiped her mouth then tried for another rescue breath. Still, her chest refused to rise.

Maru ran into the room, wheeling the defibrillator behind her. She looked at the Farmer, then Harvey, concerned. Harvey shook his head and spoke between abdominal thrusts. “She must have drowned. In one of them. Her lungs are completely. Full of it!” More slime slowly splatted to the table. Harvey tried to force a breath into her throat again. He cursed as he met resistance. “It’s viscous. Hard to force out. Come on girl!”

Time ticked by. Harvey checked the clock. The Farmer was in respiratory arrest for at least three minutes now. The slime dripped from her mouth at a snail's pace. Her tanned skin was taking on an ashy parlor. Maru watched, clearly nervous, but keeping her cool far better than Harvey expected. At the four minute mark, a gurgle, almost coughing sound forced itself out of the Farmer's lips. Harvey quickly cleared her mouth again then attempted another rescue breath. This time, with only slight resistance, the Farmer's chest rose. Harvey smiled, then breathed for the Farmer again. He pulled back, half expecting to see her spring up and start coughing. But she didn't.

Harvey's blood chilled. He pressed two shaking fingers into the pulse point at her neck. At first he thought there was nothing, that she was gone. He laid his head to her chest and held his breath. Silence, then a stumble. A skip. A beat. Her heart was fumbling arrhythmicly, barely clinging on. “She’s arrhythmic!”

Instantly, shears were in his hand. He nodded his thanks to Maru before snipping the straps of the Farmer's overalls and rolling them down to her knees. He cut through her light linen shirt, then the middle of her simple black bra, exposing her chest to the cold air of the clinic. Her chest and stomach were several shades paler than the rest of her body, and freckled. Harvey forced himself to avert his gaze, focus on placing the electrodes on her chest. Adrenaline coursed through his body, reminding him that she was no more than his patient. His dying patient.

Maru pushed the defibrillator paddles into his hand, snapping Harvey back to reality. “Gelled and charged to 200!”

Harvey nodded and pressed them roughly against the Farmer’s bare chest. “Clear!” He pressed the buttons on the paddles, releasing an arc of electricity through the Farmer’s chest. Her body reacted like it was kicked, jumping, recoiling, then crashing to the table. Her breasts rocked with the momentum. Harvey glanced at the screen on the monitor. Her heart pumped normally for five beats before falling back into arrhythmia. “Charge to 250!”

As Maru charged the paddles, Harvey leaned over the Farmer and fed her another rescue breath, forcing it deep down her throat. He placed one hand on the Farmer’s naked ribcage, ensuring that he felt the flex as it filled with his air. He gave her a second, then a third, before the paddles finished charging.

This time Maru pressed the paddles against her ribs, wriggling them slightly to ensure proper placement. Her brow was furrowed, but instead of fear her eyes shone with determination. Harvey couldn’t help but feel proud of his nurse. He forced his shaking hands to still. She had stronger nerves than he did.

“Clear!”

The Farmer lurched in the air, breasts jiggling from the sudden force of the shock. She flopped back to the table, eyes half lidded and unseeing. Harvey checked the monitor. One stumbling beat. Then nothing. Flatline.

Harvey lunged to her body, centering his hand on her sternum between her small, round breasts. Harvey started compressions, shallow at first, then settling into a depth of two inches. “One and two and three and four…” The Farmer’s chest caved beneath his hands, sending ripples down her stomach. Maru moved to the Farmer’s head and tipped it back, placing a laryngoscope between her gaping lips and sliding a tube down her throat. At the count of thirty, Maru clipped an ambu bag to the end of the tube and tested her placement by forcing two breaths down the Farmer’s throat. Harvey watched her chest rise, then nodded. “Good placement. Two breaths every thirty compressions. One, two, three…” He resumed compressions, pistoning the girl’s chest almost robotically. Each pump registered on the monitor, a small green blip that signaled the Farmer’s complete reliance on Harvey.

Harvey felt numb and panicked all at once. He hadn’t performed CPR since medical school. Accidents like this don’t happen in the valley. Nothing exciting ever happens in the valley. Harvey watched the way the Farmer’s body reacted to his compressions. He looked at her messy hair, her half lidded eyes. Nothing exciting happened in the valley until she showed up.

Her smile, her gifts, her bag stuffed full of foraged berries and crystals and fish.

Harvey hit thirty then checked her pulse, this time through her femoral artery on her surprisingly soft thigh. As he did, and as Maru administered two more breaths, Harvey remembered the last time he took the Farmer’s pulse at her first annual checkup in Stardew Valley. How quick it was, her flushed cheeks. He never imagined they would end up like this, him feeling for her pulse only to be met with clammy stillness. Harvey cursed and dove onto her chest with renewed vigor, pounding even deeper than he had prior. Her body swayed to the rhythm of it, feet rocking, head swaying. “Come on! Come back to us!”

“Harvey!”

Harvey stopped and checked the monitor. It wasn’t a full, sinus rhythm like he was hoping for, but the monitor registered a skipping arrhythmia as her heart trembled and struggled in her chest. Harvey breathily laughed, despite himself. “Yes! Charging the paddles for 300!”

Maru flooded the Farmer’s bruised and beaten chest with oxygen, keeping a consistent, fast rhythm as she pumped the ambu bag. Harvey picked up the paddles and pressed them into the Farmer’s chest. “Clear!”

Her chest lurched into the air, breasts twitching. She crashed back onto the table, her whole body rolled from the force. Her head swayed, but Maru held it still and flooded her lungs again. Harvey rubbed the Farmer’s chest with one hand and checked the monitor.

Her heart held a sinus rhythm for seven seconds before falling back into irregular, inefficient beats. Harvey took a deep breath and checked the clock. At least 11 minutes since the Farmer’s heart held a regular rhythm, and she was in complete respiratory arrest for at least 14. Harvey turned the dial on the defibrillator as far to the right as it could go. “360! Charging!”

As the defibrillator charged, Harvey squeezed the Farmer’s hand then stroked her slick cheek. “Come on, girl! I need you to come back to me!”

The paddles beeped, indicating they were charged. Harvey pressed them firm against the Farmer’s chest, using the excess of gel to slide them into place. He glanced at the Farmer’s face, her pale cheeks, her blue lips. He prayed to Yoba, to anything that would listen that this would work. “Clear!”

The Farmer jerked up, back arching, and fell heavy back to the bed. The monitor showed a regular rhythm, but Harvey still held his breath and Maru continued to breathe for the Farmer. The room was tense, both waiting for the Farmer to fall back into fibrillation.

She groaned, then her eyes fluttered open. Maru laughed, shoulders finally untensing. Harvey placed his hand to the Farmer’s cheek. “You’re ok! You’re ok…”

The Farmer reached for the tube in her mouth, but Harvey caught her hand. “Not yet! Not yet. Just relax, when you’re more stable we can consider it.” He wanted to cheer. He wanted to cry. He wanted to sleep for a week, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to. Not after today.

When he looked down, he saw the Farmer studying his face. She moved her hand to her waist, then her hip. Patting her body down until she found her pocket. The Farmer grabbed something, a small bottle, and placed it in Harvey’s hand. Harvey grabbed it, then held it up to his face. “Truffle Oil?” He stared, first at the bottle, then the Farmer. He laughed, unable to contain it. “Thanks! This will be fantastic drizzled on pasta.”

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