My first medical emergency!

[flapsforty]

Topdog1, the way you feel right now is normal & natural for someone who has been through what you describe.
Not nice, but normal & natural to berate yourself, to wonder if you effed up big time, to doubt your own abilities and to be nervous about flying as No1 again.
Unless you are an overconfident bull**** artist, people like us who are not confronted with these matters on a daily basis, will suffer the after effects.
It just shows that you're human mate.


It takes time for your emotions to work through this, but you will get back your confidence. Honest.
For the 'work through period', here are a few things that have helped me in the past, no idea if they do the same for you, but here goes anyway.

• If the de-fib machine told you to shock the man, that means he needed to be shocked and would have probably died if you hadn't used it. Points for doing your job well right there.
• It is not at all par for the course that a patient 'comes back' as you describe. More points to you that he did.
• He left the AC alive; thanks to your intervention. Points to whom?

As to your last remark, about perhaps you should have done something different. Well yes, perhaps you could and should have. Looking back at emergency situations, there are always things we could have done better. Always!
That's tough to live with, but unless you want to become a desk bound pen pusher, it's a reality you will have to come to terms with.


Give it time, talk about it a lot and accept that Super(wo)man only exists in the movies. If you find that there are things you could have done better, learn from it and try to move on.
Perhaps you will find that in fact you did a hell of a good job and are now suffering from a mild dose of post traumatic stress.

Good luck, and for what it's worth, I think you did really well!