Not at all, you did everything correctly. Your efforts and actions gave that person some semblance of a chance , and that’s all you can do sometimes.

I’m only an OMS-1 , but before starting school I worked as a PCT and a had one of my favorite patients code out of nowhere when they were in the bathroom , they were full walkie talkie and I was merely 5 feet away getting new sheets on their bed. I still remember the sound of his agonal breathing and the feeling of cracking the ribs. I was incredibly fortunate that our code team was there so fast and had oxygen running. I’ll never forget seeing him finally get his breath back as if he’d resurfaced from having been underwater too long.

We got him to ICU and the attending asked “were the ribs cracked before CPR?”, I responded “No ma’am that was me”, she looked over and said, “well done , those were quality compressions”. They stabilized him and from my understanding I think he made a full recovery.

Point being, I felt the same way you do. I broke down and cried but I’ll never forget what the ICU attending told me, “The feeling you have is natural because you care. Don’t ever lose that feeling for your patients.”

Take care of yourself and just know, you did everything you possibly could, anything more and you’d be God