Danielle Ofri

Okay, okay.

Respirations!

Dead people do not breathe.

And so I whip out my stethoscope.

By now, the family is filtered in from the hallway and they gather around a watch that I put in one earpiece and the other, and I plant the bell in her chest.

And suddenly, a twitch vibrates through her body and I jump back.

Was this rigor mortis?

Or might she still be alive?

Suddenly it dawns on me that we never had a lecture in medical school on how to declare a patient dead.

I guess it was assumed to be pretty obvious.

Dead is dead.

And if you're not dead, then you're alive, right?

Pulse, pulse, that is it.

Dead people for sure do not have a pulse.

And so I run my fingers along her left carotid and then along her right.

Of course, the only way you know you've found the pulse is when you've found the pulse.

How do you document the absence of something when its presence is defined by hunting until you've found it?

Maybe I was in the wrong spot.

Maybe I'm pressing too hard and not hard enough.

Was I supposed to go over her entire body to document the absence of a pulse?