Code Blue: What Should I Do?

Code Blue (cardiac/respiratory arrest) events in-hospital can be really scary, especially if you work in the Medical-Surgical or procedural areas, because they are so unexpected (most often, I should say.) I remember my first code quite clearly: a coworker and I were in a double room, helping to admit a relatively healthy (by transplant unit standards) patient, and as we were walking out to finish up the admission paperwork, we saw the patient in the first bed take his last breath. This man was not well, but we did not expect him to go into cardiac arrest!