I ran down the 10 flights of stairs from my apartment, and out onto the street, then 7 blocks south; I just got a call from the hospital, my brother was just checked-in. After interrogating the nurse for the room number, I raced up another 3 flights of stairs, made it to the third floor, and found room 317. But instead of rushing into the room, I opened the door slowly, and saw my little brother asleep; his skin was pale, attached to many wires hooked up to light beeping machines, his arms restrained to the white, soft bed.

“I assume you're a family member?” Dr. Walker asked I nodded yes. “Well, I’ll fill you in on the current situation. What happened was that Andrew’s roommate, Eric, found him sitting in the shower, with his wrists cut badly, and 2 bloody glass shards nearby. However, he is alright now, just sedated to repress the pain. Eric is right in the hallway if you would like to talk to him, Andrew won’t be waking up for a while." I found Eric outside in the waiting area, with his head caressed in his hands.

“Eric, I’m so sorry you had to see that. How are you holding up?” I asked him in an effort to comfort him. “I’m fine, but just worried and frustrated about all of this. Did Andrew tell you how many times he tried reaching out to college health services? He talked to the person there 5 times, about his anxiety, depression, you name it. But he kept on getting rejected, they had more “essential” candidates that they needed to treat they said.

Then today, all the stress of college and work fell upon him, and he just couldn’t take it anymore. He got up this morning and took a long shower. The next thing I heard was some glass shatter, and then a thump. I rushed into the bathroom and found him right after that”. As Eric described more of the situation, I shook my head in disbelief. He then stated how the college does not have enough funding for their mental health services, so only the “worst” cases are treated, leaving most students without help.

My thoughts were still in a whirl when Eric asked me “Are you going to stay with Andrew for the night?”. I responded, “No since I have class tomorrow, but I’m sure that the hospital will take care of him”. Eric stared at me in disbelief, “you’re not going to stay with him? I mean, hospitals make mistakes all the time. You have to watch him” he stated. “Well that’s what the patient representative is supposed to do, to make sure that everything is fine,” I said.

Eric looked irritated as I left, but I continued to tell myself that everything was fine and that the hospital was the safest place where Andrew could be right now. When my parents called, I just told them that Andrew has been busy with schoolwork, and he was alright.

I came back to the hospital the next day, where disaster had awaited me. My mind went into a panic state as Dr. Walker explained how Andrew went into cardiac arrest overnight, and that he was placed in the ICU. Not only did I have to worry about Andrew, but also soaring medical bills for him being in intensive care; I didn’t know how we could afford it. But I brushed this off as I talked to my brother in his new room, or I at least tried.

I found him with tubes all over his body and was even paler than yesterday, but he was awake. To take my mind off of the deafening silence in the room, I talked to him about school and my classes, which made him smile a little. I then asked him about his night at the hospital, where he said that one of the night nurses gave him some medicine he didn’t recognize, and then a couple minutes after, he felt his chest tighten and shortly lost consciousness.

I was actually about to open his chart when one of the nurses came in and started to fill a syringe with liquid. As she was just about to inject Andrew, she said: “Ok Jack, this medicine will do you just the trick with that pain you’ve been feeling in your leg”. “I’m not Jack!” Andrew yelled, which startled the nurse; she then walked out of the room quickly. Andrew and I stared at each other in silence, dealing with the shock of what was just about to happen, potentially again.

However, I left the hospital again after a lengthy and passionate conversation with the patient representative about what we just saw. She personally guaranteed me that the night nurses would especially look after him. After explaining this to Andrew, he looked faintly happy. I even saw a bright light coming from both of his eyes as I left the room and headed back to my dorm, comforted.

On the third day I visited my brother, the nurse directed me to the back of the hospital, past the regular rooms and the ICU, it became weirdly cold as I walked further and further into the building. She led me to a room, where Dr. Walker stood as if he waited for me. “I’m sorry to say, but there has been some bad news. Your brother died last night from another incident of cardiac arrest, we did all we could” he stated coldly.

“Here are the papers for you to sign” he added, looking at me, then walked slowly out of the room down the long hallway. As I looked up for the first time around the room, I saw a blanket covering the shape of a corpse, with a file labeled “Andrew ___” under it.

Still, in shock, I read the file, where I found that indeed one nurse gave him an overdose of a medicine the night before, and another nurse last night had forgotten to give him his medicine. I dropped Andrew’s file as a felt a numb feeling over my body. As I then turned to pick up the dropped papers, I saw Dr. Walker staring at me blankly at the end of the hallway, then he disappeared.

I wish he could have been there to feel the pain I was in when I had to call my parents outside the hospital that morning, with the cold and dry winter air stinging my already red cheeks. The hospital made many mistakes that ended up killing Andrew, but it turns out, for me, it only took one.

Further Readings on Hospital Mistakes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/should-hospitals--and-doctors--apologize-for-medical-mistakes/2017/03/10/1cad035a-fd20-11e6-8f41-ea6ed597e4ca_story.html?utm_term=.cb635e64e045

http://www.health.com/news/what-to-do-when-hospital-makes-mistake

Further readings on College Mental Health:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/inside-out-outside-in/201703/the-college-mental-health-crisis-focus-overall-wellbeing

http://college.usatoday.com/2017/05/04/more-and-more-students-need-mental-health-services-but-colleges-struggle-to-keep-up/