journal entry from my interview days 11-3/5-08

He was one of my hosts when I was on the interview trail. Well, I wish. But my host looked exactly like him. After I landed in Seattle...the elevation unsettled me a little bit. I am used to completely flat land, no surprises anywhere. However, I really like how it rains/drizzles a lot- it reminds me of Scotland, one of my favorite places in the world. Also, the lights dotting the mountains and the soothing expanse of lake surrounding the school is breathtaking.

So Mr. Krasinski, we'll call him, had the coolest apartment I've seen so far. He and his down-to-earth girlfriend shared a lofted space; again I grew up in one place my whole life and only recently started to travel, so the little things are wondrous to me.

After some small talk about the school, my host presented to me a flyer about the I-1000 proposition up for vote election day tomorrow, and gave me a key to his house and told me to make myself at home. Wow. I could only hope to be as hospitable as these people were if I could become a med student.




The next morning, we took the bus to school. COLORS! The fall here is so beautiful!


The bus is actually really really good. We arrived at school, the 2nd largest federal building after the pentagon. I didn’t believe it at first until I was actually inside. It’s a maze. Seriously.

So the admissions office has a freaking lounge just for applicants. This touch blew me away at first, but when I realized UWSOM didn’t interview batches of 60 once a week like some other schools, it made more sense. There was only 7 of us total that day. I loved it! I got to know all the other applicants who were just really fun, and our tour guide was great and showed us some great views and was pretty chatty as well.

The presentation was alright, so was lunch, and the med students as usual were great. The staff were superb, and walked us around themselves. Now the interview sucked. Role playing? Three interviewers on one interviewee? What the heck? They even played good cop, bad cop, and pissed off cop. Let’s say I have had better interviews. I left the room feeling like the whole trip had been fun so far but was a waste of money. The second interview was so much better. It was just one on one and we had a great time chatting in her office. Good thing my host let me look at the proposition up for the vote.

After that I had time to burn, so I sat in a neuro-ethics class. It was alright, big lecture of second years reminded me of my high school all over again. Next I just wandered around the undergrad campus. It is gorgeous, and I would have a ton of fun running these trails.



Near the end, I met a couple of retired professors, of dentistry and forestry. They actually gave me some good tips on photography, and we walked the trails, talking. I am so lucky. From the slums nearly dealing drugs to the hallowed halls of academia…it is a dream come true. Here I was in a suit, strolling with men who had risen to the top of their fields about photography composition and healthcare, when some of my childhood friends are in jail. This election day so many dreams are coming true.




The above pic was from a house party that my next host brought me to. It was possible to most fun I’ve had all semester. She drives a transformer:



Seriously! She wrecked her car, but her husband who was a surgery resident welded a new back end on. It’s hilarious! Anyway, we showed up at the house full of med students and just had a great time relaxing. Homemade brownies, pizza, drinks. I had to add that the yes, the rumor is true. The hotter the med student, the more likely they are married already. Hahahaha.

So my second host actually had an entire bed and room ready for me. Wow. This is just amazing! A huge window overlooking the lights of Seattle, chocolate on my pillow, what more could I ask for? All too soon it’s time to fly back home.

Ethics is fun

Hands down. I have a great prof who is energetic and funny enough to make the 3 hour lecture come completely alive. He jokes about insurance companies, makes great analogies, and doesn't create a stressful class environment at all.

We were talking about euthanasia and assisted suicide today. Oh boy. It was a nice break from the madness of midterms though. I have to dive back into my intensive paper writing now. 12 pages down, 38 left to go!

On a unrelated note, I was doing another special event the other day, and our contact was this jolly tia. Anyway, she showed me some great music- Piano Vines is the band. They aren't signed, but wow it is a breath of fresh air whenever I listen in.

Sigh. Time to pick classes soon. I really want to take a year off, and just have fun learning about photography, economics, guitar. I don't know if I will be able to. This is essentially my 5th year. Do I want to take another? If I can take more classes with my ethics prof, that may be a deciding factor.

Well today has been the most amusing interview yet. I was at UT-Houston today, walking into the building at 7:30 am. Aghhh. But it was a really early start because they reserve 3+ hours for their tour. It easily blows every other interview tour out of the water.

The Texas Medical Center. Biggest in the world, so big we were jumping on charter buses to get to all of our destinations. I had three hilarious tour guides - at the children's center they were jumping on the seesaws and playing with the toys. We saw open heart surgery- through an observation dome at St Luke's that was very similar to the one in Grey's Anatomy. Memorial Hermann is just so...nice compared to everywhere else in Texas. The new rec center, apartments, ANATOMY labs...wow. It's pretty impressive.

I love how there are McDonald's in the Heart Institute. Same at Parkland, above their path labs.

Songs stuck in my head all day:

The Rapture: No Sex for Ben
TI- Whatever you like
Nickelback- Gotta be somebody

You know, I've always wondered.

This is such a good song for those living the life of a medic.



Human- The Killers

I did my best to notice
when the call came down the line
up to the platform of surrender
I was brought but I was kind
and sometimes I get nervous
when I see an open door

close your eyes, clear your heart

cut the cord
are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer
are we human or are we denser

pay my respects to grace and virtue
send my condolences to good
give my regards to soul and romance
they always did the best they could
and so long to devotion, you taught me everything I know
wave good bye, wish me well

you gotta let me go
are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer
are we human or are we denser

will your system be alright
when you dream of home tonight
there is no message we're receiving
let me know is your heart still beating

are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer

you've gotta let me know
are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer
are we human
or are we denser

are we human or are we denser

are we human or are we denser

<3

Interview

I had my first med school interview last Friday! I drove down to the beach, through the traffic, to just barely make it in time for the social. Heh. That totally did not happen.

I met up with a MSII that I was bumming a place to sleep with, and he introduced me to the joys of Geometry Wars II on Xbox live, and some horticulture on the side. It was fantastic.

We ended up watching Flight of the Conchords and assorted stuff on his amazing TV, in his amazing bachelor pad. Life was pretty sweet- his own place, miles of beach outside of his window, a drive up and down the coast to class...I could imagine myself studying away in this paradise.

Anyway, the next morning, I dressed up and walked down to my car. Huh. The battery is dead. I guess I shouldn't have ignored the insistent beeping the day before. The rest of the day was actually pretty pleasant. Three people from my school was there, and 3 more from my highschool. Woahh trip down memory lane, while everyone else freaked out about the upcoming interviews.

Fastforward past the engaging conversations, past the presentations and tours. I can't believe I am at this point, an interview down, several more to go. When did life become this...weird adventure? It is the only I can really describe it. I have gotten to the point where many people from where I grew up would call me a workaholic, but what I see is a mini-quest. How much homework can I churn through in a hour, how much cell bio can I pick up, how many patients can I transport this shift, how much inventorying can I do in a day, how much life can I really live in this lifetime? I had gotten to the point where I would motivate myself to breeze through unpleasant tasks by warping my own perception of what was fun. Where was the real fun? It became a guilty pleasure, hidden away in a schedule that was in need of 25 hour days. My Meg Cabot books, sitting in a library just plowing through all of the teenage fiction books that I skipped when I was actually a teenager because I was too busy with the "regular" fiction.

I drove back, and watched some live football, then went out to dinner with some good friends from highschool. We snuck into Yao Ming's restaurant's restroom, purely because we were curious about the amazing faucets. They were indeed amazing. Then back to another friend from high school who was now a MSI. Sweet sweet stuff, watching Obama give his acceptance speech.

Here's to a brighter future.

Happiness

For a couple minutes today, I was very happy.

My friend has a cute white VW convertible Rabbit. While it...converted, I felt like I was on the set of Transformers, with all the awesome German engineering at work.

We cruised back home from our dinner meeting, the warm breeze playing with my friend's blonde hair as she drove. Another friend was in the passenger seat, intently reading an article in Cell. Hahaha I felt at peace, and just enjoyed the tree lined drive shading us from the setting sun.

Classes start in half a day. It's time to rock n' roll.

Okay, I admit it, the names and the circumstances have been modified to protect. And something called HIPPA. But this place is a great way for me to vent, for me to play around with the English language, and for me to have a punching bag whenever life gets too out of hand.

Well it starts at midnight. Again. If I had traveled back in time a year ago, I would not have recognized myself.

"Ambulance One, Paramedic One, Engine One, respond to a gun shot wound, ************* address, SO (Sheriff's Officers) on scene, Map page ***."

Minutes later, "Ambulance Three, Paramedic Three, respond to same address, possible fatality, LifeFlight on hold."

I was so pumped on adrenaline everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I sprinted past the officers lifting up the yellow crime scene tape to an horrific scene. One guy my age curled up lifelessly in front of a door. Blood formed a surreal backdrop to everything, spraying the doors, pooling on the floor, soon all over our hands.

A mother empty of tears held on to her son in the middle of all of the carnage. After I made sure the other kid truly had no pulse, everyone focused their efforts on the surviving kid. Hands clamping down to stop the bleeding, shears cutting off clothing, soft grunts as we lifted him on our backboard into the ambulance.

A soft whir in the distance signaled the helicopter's arrival. Inside the ambulance, things were getting worse. The paramedic had trouble intubating because of all the blood spewing from his lungs. I slapped my hands against the open holes but blood kept coming out, getting all over my uniform, my hands. He started to fight us as his brain lost his last oxygen reserves, but the flight paramedic arrived to knock him out with a cocktail, and soon the helicopter began to start up.

The copter lifted off from the street blocked off by our fire engines, and blew dust all over the blood caked all over me. Great. I ripped off my gloves only to notice the tear. Shit. I tried to clean off the blood on my bare hands, but just as I closed the door, the latch cut into my palm.

For a moment, I looked at the cut, imagining capilaries releasing blood, flowing blood that bubbled out onto my palm.

No time to think about it, because another unit called over the radio, warning all units about the 4-5 gangsters walking down the road towards our location, murderous and vengeful.

The night doesn't stop there. Hours later, we were called back. After multiple police units had secured the scene again, a crowd of neighbors had surrounded the mother of the fallen gangster, trying to calm her down. It was chaotic, with the entire extended family sobbing, trying to dab away the blood that covered the mother.

I don't even know where I am going with this. There isn't a meaningful way for me to express what I am feeling, but with each sentence I am trying to clean myself. With my previous codes, I could build a wall, separate myself from the patient in front of me.

There was no way I could now. I gave too much of myself, plugging bullet holes with my hands, the same hands that held hands with a mother who should never have to survive her sons, the same hands that a cheerful nurse drew blood from to test for possible exposure to HIV.

I drove home in the morning, and parked in spot under a shady tree. I got out of the car, and could not take it anymore. I crumpled the coffee cup that kept me from falling asleep on the road, and pounded it against the door frame of my car. I...let the emotions wash over me, a catharsis under waving branches, until I ran out and stumbled back home.

Beginings and endings

Sometimes it is hard to tell when something starts or stops. Sometimes it is painfully clear.

During shift change, you hand off patients by rounding on each on, updating their status to the new shift of nurses, docs, etc. The old shift is dead tired, ready to leave; the new shift still sleepy- waking up. At the end of one nursing home shift, the head nurse discovered one of her patients did not have a pulse, nor any breaths.

I arrived on scene with the firefighters and medics. The Nigerian nurses at the under-performing nursing home did not know how to perform CPR. The beginning of the end for the patient that was coding. After awhile, we called it there. Time of death- exactly midnight. Beginning of a new day, the end of another.

Our team that responded to the campus disaster met with the President of the University a couple days ago. Although it was a formality, it was good to have official recognition of our efforts. This is the exception, because the 24/7/365 coverage firemen/officers/EMTs provide go unnoticed in the background. It is perfectly fine because those of us who expect external gratification burn out and leave the field in droves.


The Dark Knight was an excellent movie. I am up for seeing it again.

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered,
LOVE THEM ANYWAY

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives,
DO GOOD ANYWAY

If you are successful, you win false and true enemies,
SUCCEED ANYWAY

The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
DO GOOD ANYWAY

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY

What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight,
BUILD ANYWAY

People really need help but may attack you if you help them,
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth,
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU'VE GOT ANYWAY

- From a sign on Mother Theresa's Children's Home in Calcutta

Homecoming

Last night, the last In-Charge returned. Cue dramatic music, Fellowship of the Ring-esque.

We four recruits finished training several months ago, and was joined by a current In-Charge. The five of us held the fort all summer, waiting for the mysterious sixth In-Charge to return. I had only met him once two years ago. He actually mentored my mentors, then left for Spain for a year.



The welcome back gathering was interesting. We had three from the original team from two years ago. Then another three from last year. And finally all four of us newest recruits were there as well. We had a ton of fun talking, but flowing underneath the entertaining banter was a unspoken bond.

This feels a little trite to type out, but everyone in the room was in the business of saving lives. It was both an honor and a joy for everyone to relax in our room, and without a doubt the campus was as safe as it would ever be.

Surprise!

Today I worked an EMT contract job. The city opera society worked out a deal with us that I am perfectly happy with. I waltz in, and essentially get paid to watch an opera, tend to patients (only one patient the entire time last year), and could bring a date for free.

Nice, huh?


I was supposed to meet my contact at the box office. I found him, and he seemed like a nice cashier, showing me where to go and handing me my tickets. I brought a friend this first time, and we had a good time exploring the absolutely gorgeous building. The pre-show lecture was spectacular, ranking with some of the best lectures from the school year.

After we finished up the show, my contact walked up in a snazzy suit and asked if we enjoyed the show. It was indeed cute, entertaining, and just a great Gilbert & Sullivan show in general. As I flipped through the program waiting for everyone to file out, on the first page was a welcome letter from the President of the opera society, with a nice photo of my contact included. Yup.

Guardian

Your Keirsey Temperament Sorter Results indicates that your personality type is that of the Guardian.



All Guardians (SJs) share the following core characteristics:

* Guardians pride themselves on being dependable, helpful, and hard-working.
* Guardians are concerned citizens who trust authority, join groups, seek security, prize
gratitude, and dream of meting out justice.
* Guardians tend to be dutiful, cautious, humble, and focused on credentials and traditions.
* Guardians make loyal mates, responsible parents, and stabilizing leaders.


Guardians are the cornerstone of society, for they are the temperament given to serving and preserving our most important social institutions. Guardians have natural talent in managing goods and services--from supervision to maintenance and supply -- and they use all their skills to keep things running smoothly in their families, communities, schools, churches, hospitals, and businesses.

Guardians can have a lot of fun with their friends, but they are quite serious about their duties and responsibilities. Guardians take pride in being dependable and trustworthy; if there's a job to be done, they can be counted on to put their shoulder to the wheel. Guardians also believe in law and order, and sometimes worry that respect for authority, even a fundamental sense of right and wrong, is being lost. Perhaps this is why Guardians honor customs and traditions so strongly -- they are familiar patterns that help bring stability to our modern, fast-paced world.

Practical and down-to-earth, Guardians believe in following the rules and cooperating with others. They are not very comfortable winging it or blazing new trails; working steadily within the system is the Guardian way, for in the long run loyalty, discipline, and teamwork get the job done right. Guardians are meticulous about schedules and have a sharp eye for proper procedures. They are cautious about change, even though they know that change can be healthy for an institution. Better to go slowly, they say, and look before you leap.

Guardians make up as much as 40 to 45 percent of the population, and a good thing, because they usually end up doing all the indispensable but thankless jobs everyone else takes for granted.

The four types of Guardians are:

Provider (ESFJ) | Protector (ISFJ) | Supervisor (ESTJ) | Inspector (ISTJ)

Which one are you?

Purchase your Comprehensive Advanced Keirsey Temperament Reports™ now!
Use the power of your personality to advance your career, become a better leader, or improve your relationships

Just found out, one of my most serious patient's name was Jesus. Hah. I saved Jesus's life.

Jesus is alive. I repeat, Jesus is alive.

Just found out, one of my most serious patient's name was Jesus. Hah. I saved Jesus's life.

I wonder what happens next.

I wish things had turned out better

Where do I start?

A long day at lab was winding down. I took out the dialysis bags, reading to purify my samples.

Then the pager cried out angrily. Wall collapse.

For a brief second as my neurons organized a response, life was still, and simple. 50-70 mph winds blew rain horizontally into my face as I dashed to my car. A line of scared construction works frantically waved me into the construction site after I waved my EMS sign for clearance.

I haphazardly parked next to what looked like anti-tank mines from "Saving Private Ryan." (Later I would have to jack up my car to dig out the spikes that destroyed one side and almost punctured several wheels.) I joined an officer and we sprinted towards the collapsed walls. From the talk afterwards, it looked like the crazy hurricane speed horizontal winds collapsed one side, and the domino effect created this insane scene from a movie.

The officer and I dashed into the mess of bricks. I scooped a helmet off the floor, and dodged rebar waiting to stab me. I climbed up the ladder, and it really was like a scene from a movie.

Over 20 construction workers were frantically pulling rubble off their fallen coworkers while the rain and wind overpowered my feeble attempts at medical Spanish. Lighting flashed to illuminate the black afternoon sky, while a circular saw screamed in agony in order to free someone trapped under layers of cinder blocks.

I found the ranking officer on scene, and tried to work the worst patient.

I searched for a pulse, praying for even a weak rebound against my fingers.

None. I stepped back and searched for more patients while they continued CPR.

The rest of the day blended together. Fire/Rescue arrived, and they used the massive construction crane to gently float patients down to the ground. The city's finest pulled a sheet over the traumatic arrest. God help his family.

Sometime in that hour, the rain stopped and the sun creeped up and said "surprise!"

What was f'king messed up was when my mud caked shoes kissed the ground again, we had a page to my dorm, several individuals trapped under a stairwell collapse. Can you say Cluster F'k?

Turned out to be a false alarm. I don't know who to thank.

Crap loads of people kept calling me. When my mom called, I promptly dropped the phone into a pool of mud. She thought I was dead for an hour or so.

A psych came by the conference room, and we just talked about the call. We were all fine.

What a day.

I've taken a two week hiatus from my main EMS job, to sit back and finish up med school apps. Worst decision ever.

I essentially fell into this slump, where I caught up on sleep, let my family know I'm still kickin', and became homeless for a week (interesting story there). However, I did not get any work done, other than surf a crap-ton of medblogs on a wild-goose chase for any advice on how to wrestle with my apps.

Only when I jumped a call this morning did I realize I've been floating along, only half awake. I will hopefully be back in action tomorrow. For now, I am running Incident Command for the C-USA baseball regionals. The cot I set up next to my laptop is starting to smell like burgers and fries. Mmm yum. No patients, please.

You are a Sock. A funky personally quiz declared my existence as 100% cotton-weave. I thought it was an appropriate name for this blog. Socks go in haphazardly into my drawer, which is also a place for me to stick stuff. Dr Au describes it best:

Because your your underwear drawer is where you stash all your demons. All the private stuff that you don't want your parents to find. All the embarassing stuff that you jam all the way to the bottom right before your new boyfriend comes to visit. All the private valuables from your adolescence that you might find years later (tucked away under that dingy pair of granny panties that you never wear but keep around for contingency), the significance of which, years later, you can barely remember.

"http://theunderweardrawer.homestead.com/files/00-10-27.html"


Agh. Do you see how I've fallen into the dark side?

Code Blue

Well. Last post up until now, the volunteer ambulance service I ride with fielded fairly routine calls, more medical cases than anything. Nothing really exciting or crazy.

I was waiting for a chance to...do something crazy. Save someone's life. Work a code.

Earlier this morning, I got my wish. Damn it...I wish it never happened.

It was actually a light Friday night, with several refusals and nothing close to my usual weekend crap-fest of calls slammed right after each other. I had dinner with the rest of the firemen, and relaxed while the others moved the ambulance and fire engine out into the street in order to play street hockey in the bay.

A nice normal night.

At 0145, we had a call for respiratory distress. Again, still normal considering the change in humidity and weather lately. Wooweewoowee bright flashing lights, zooming down the narrow road dodging idiot drivers.

We get on scene to find a gentleman with a mouth and tongue swollen up to Jabba-the-Hut size. He could still talk, with a odd high pitched tone. None of the firemen or us EMT's did anything on scene; instead, we walked him over to the ambulance.

Mr W, my paramedic supervisor asked me if I could handle this call. (Usually the supervisor can jet in their Crown-Vic responder cars, in order to be ready for the next call if he felt the two EMT's could transport a non-emergent patient without any complication.) I thought about it for a second. For the last couple of shifts I had always asked the paramedic to ride in since I am normally very over caution about everything. I looked at the pt, who was settling into the stretcher, who didn't look too agitated. Maybe I can finally just own up and take care of patients myself instead of defaulting to a superior. Maybe I could grow some balls.

"I've got this one, W. Don't worry about it." Mr. W looked at me, then back to patient. Our student was hooking the gentleman up to reserve oxygen, while my partner jumped into the driver's seat.

"I don't know. He is having a bit of respiratory trouble. I'll ride in," Mr W decided. I hook our pt onto the cardiac monitor, and tried to help Mr W start a IV.



Everything started to go downhill.

Mr W. couldn't get a line going. Our gentleman started to flail about. It took me absolutely too long to realize what was going on.

I looked at the monitor to see our pt's oxygen saturation drop. Drop. Drop. 95-100% is great. 90-95% Means something is seriously wrong. Any thing less means I get to shove a tube down your throat to force air into you. Your fickle body will probably be unconscious as well.

82%

63%

Our patient was flailing because his throat had swelled shut with his tongue so huge it was choking him.


We didn't have a line in. No IV benadryl or epi to slow down the reaction. I threw a dose of benadryl to Mr W, who stabbed the patient with a IM needle to deliver the drug into the muscles in his shoulder. Piss poor absorption. This man is going to die soon if we didn't do anything.

Our patient went limp. Blood oxygen saturation at 20%. His heart threw in the towel and the monitor flatlined.


Our student looked at me, then at Mr. W, unsure of what to do.

"START CPR NOW. FORGET THE DIVERSION, MR G YOU ARE TURNING THIS AMBULANCE AROUND NOW." Instead of heading to a hospital across town because they had our patient's records, we now were ripping down a sleepy road to the nearest hospital that was already on diversion for critical ER saturation. Our patient's life was literally draining out of our hands with every second we wasted on the road and NOT in a ER.

I frantically tore open compartments, looking for a bag to force air into my patient's lungs. WHY WAS EVERY BAG-VALVE-MASK PEDIATRIC SIZED?!?! The flustered student was pumping down on the patient's chest entirely too fast and too shallow, while I finally slapped together an adult BVM. I threw an Epi-Pen at MR W, who struggled to cut open the pt's pants, then stabbed the Pen in.

My God.

Thank goodness we were only several minutes away from the closest hospital. Those minutes were the most agonizing of my entire life. I tried so hard to bag our patient with one hand, but the whole endeavor was like trying to drive 80 mph down a freeway with one foot on the pedal and the attached knee steering. I am not joking. You need at least four hands to successfully bag a patient, I only had myself.

I felt like an utter failure.

We flew into the ambulance bay, and of course, the stretcher just HAD TO RUN OUT OF POWER as we tried to unload the patient. God damn battery powered stretcher. It saves us from breaking our backs trying to carry a 600 pound patient, but tonight my student STOPPED CPR in order to unjam the stretcher. ARGHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO.


We finally wheeled our patient into the hands of a waiting ER team, and the began to do real CPR and pump the gentleman full of drugs. Maxed out on Epi. Threw in bicarb and D50.

During the entire scene described above, I was not scared nor freaked out. A weird detached calm blanketed me, my body was in automatic mode. Well, at least until I saw the patient's brother, sitting in a chair around the corner. Scared, uncertain eyes locked mine, until I forced my self to look away. Suddenly a flood of emotion rocked my body, all the way through my sweat-filled gloves. If the ER doc running the code didn't succeed, this man was going to lose a family member.

With the ER team in controlled chaos trying to save the gentleman's life, we EMT's were suddenly useless, so I waited outside while Mr W transferred the last of our patient data to the scribe. I stood outside with Mr G (my partner and driver for this night) and our student. After a minute I couldn't take it, and peeked back into the room. Seconds later, the nurse pounding the CPR stopped, and everyone relaxed a notch. Spontaneous heartbeat. Soon the gentleman was breathing on his own again.

Everyone involved was credited with a CPR save. "We" all worked together to save his life.

I don't know any more.