Paramedic Shares Powerful Sign in Resuscitation Room: 'Tried Their Best'

A paramedic has shared an image of the "impactful" message he found posted up on the wall of a hospital resuscitation room.

Matthew Harris, an Advanced Care Paramedic and Registered Nurse, took to social media to share a picture of the sign, which he came across in the emergency department of Southlake Regional Health Center in Newmarket, Ontario.

Harris, 38, told Newsweek that he saw the sign in one of the resuscitation rooms after transferring care of a patient he had brought in.

It reads: "I want to pause and recognize that this person had a life and dreams. I want to recognize the people in this room who tried their best to help this person today."

Frontline healthcare workers face intensely stressful and often emotional situations on a daily basis and are regularly exposed to human suffering and death.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the situation. A 2021 study of over 20,000 U.S. healthcare workers published in The Lancet medical journal found that 38 percent experienced anxiety and depression during this period, while 49 percent said they were suffering from burnout.

Those pressures are all too familiar to Harris, who has worked as a paramedic and nurse for 14 years in the Greater Toronto area.

A married father-of-one who lives in Barrie, Ontario, with his military-nurse wife, Harris has seen the pain and heartbreak of losing a loved one. His first wife died after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

When Harris saw the sign at Southlake Regional Health Center, he felt compelled to take a picture and share it on social media.

Harris told Newsweek: "Providing care for a patient during a cardiac arrest or other critical illness is a dynamic, technical, task-heavy process. We're focused on numbers, clinical findings, procedures, medication administration and team dynamics. In that process, it can be very easy to lose track of the patient as a person and see a body."

Pressure to Clear

Harris says the idea of pausing to recognize a patient as a person after their death isn't a new one but finding a way to honor them has been "elusive" for him up until he saw the sign.

"We still have a lot to do after we pronounce. There is documentation to complete, clean-up to do, death notification and support of the family and the pressure to clear and move on to the next patient," Harris added.

"I'd wanted to integrate 'the pause' into my practice for a while but hadn't found a way to do so that didn't feel stilted. I'd always taken a moment to thank the team for their efforts after we stopped and to take time for the family, but something was still missing. When I saw that sign, I really liked how succinct but impactful it was."

Harris said he shared the picture to Twitter, hoping other paramedics, nurses and physicians "would appreciate it for the same reasons I did and might find it useful in their own practice."

Harris never expected the tweet to blow up in the way it has, with nearly 10,000 likes, comments and retweets.

Hugh Wright commented: "Thank you for sharing this. It's taken me back to my resuscitations ... I still remember some of them, and their families to this day."

Anne Richards wrote: "Thank you for this. It really hits home. I caught a quick glimpse of these efforts in 2007. It was my youngest son. As I write this, he is laughing at whatever is on his phone."

Catherine Macneil posted: "This touched my heart deeply. As a retired nurse my own heart is never far from the devoted staff out there every day."

A Complete Person

Harris said: "We all struggle to some extent to maintain a connection to the humanity of our patients, especially in times of such incredible demands on healthcare workers. I think even small rituals that remind us of the patient as a complete person are valuable."

Away from healthcare professionals, Harris was also surprised at the number of ordinary people who commented on the post.

"Maybe that speaks to how patients and families feel when they interact with the system; that they're also feeling anonymous," Harris said.

"Task focus, gallows humor, and detachment: they're all coping skills we use to navigate the demands of our jobs, but they risk leaving us callous to the real emotions of our work."

Harris said: "I get it: I have and use the same coping mechanisms sometimes, but it's not always healthy. Not for us or for the people we care for. I think that connection, even a little bit, helps temper that and reminds us why we got into this work in the first place."

What Happens to Your Body When You Die?

While it may be an unsettling prospect for many, significant scientific breakthroughs mean that we know significantly more about what happens to the human body in the hours before and after death.

Newsweek spoke to a selection of mortuary scientists, parapsychologists, decomposition ecologists and forensic scientists to explore the various stages of the process in more detail.