It was dark. He was cold. His chest felt like it was about to explode. He could hear distant voices, but what they were saying, he couldn’t quite make out. There was shouting, but it was muffled, as if he were under water. Suddenly, he was a kid again, plunging himself to the bottom of the community swimming pool in search of those neon-colored diving sticks as his brother and sisters played “Marco Polo” in the background. Chlorine stung his eyes-- or was that smoke? He gasped, and immediately started coughing and sputtering. Smoke. It was definitely smoke. No pool water tasted like that. Suddenly, he was conscious and aware that where there was smoke, there was fire. Why was there a fire? And why was it so dark? He scrambled to evacuate, but he was pinned in place. He let out a cry as hot smoke singed his nostrils.
“Sir! Sir, can you hear me?” He turned towards the voice and flinched at the bright light of the flashlight shining in his face. He nodded, his voice somehow escaping him. “We’re going to get you out of here, okay?” the muffled voice told him, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Two large arms reached through the driver’s side window , and a hand unbuckled his seat belt. His seat belt. Of course. Why hadn’t it occurred to him that the seatbelt might have been the only thing pinning him down? Maybe because until now, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he was in a car. The head belonging to the arms, which he could now see belonged to a firefighter, lowered into the window to look at him. “Usually, we wouldn’t move you until the paramedics get here, because we don’t know the extent of your injuries, but the car’s on fire, sir, so we’ve got to get you out right now,” he said calmly. Then, he immediately reached inside and wrapped his arms around his torso. His body screamed in pain, and his voice followed suit. “I’m sorry,” the firefighter lamented, but he kept moving, lifting the crash victim out of the wreckage as if he were a limp ragdoll. He climbed the hill, flanked on either side by his partners, until they were what seemed like a safe distance away, just in time for the entire car to be engulfed in flames. He laid him down gently on the flattest piece of land he could find, and helped the recently arrived EMTs to stabilize his neck. “Sir, can you tell us your name?” He opened his mouth to answer, but then realized that he didn’t know.
____________________
Annie paced in the emergency department waiting room, her breath coming in ragged hiccups and tears stinging her eyes, but not quite falling yet. She’d never really been on this side of it. Nick had been wheeled into Trauma 2 where a nurse took over chest compressions and a doctor immediately began running the code. Annie, the distressed fiance, was led out to the waiting room. She considered asking to stay, but really, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to see any more than she already had. Code blues were one of the reasons she’d hated her job as an emergency physician. Depending on the situation, the success rate of an appropriately run code blue was about 20%, and even then, the surviving patient usually remained in critical condition and either died later or suffered catastrophic health problems in the aftermath. It was that tiny percentage of code patients who made a full recovery that made it worthwhile, but it was the rest of them that she took home with her-- that ate away at her piece by piece until she was devastated and burned out. The hardest part though, hadn’t been directing the unsuccessful code or even being burdened with the decision to call it and forced to rattle off the time of death. The hardest part was walking into the waiting rooms like this one to deliver the bad news to the hopeful friend or family member. There was really no way to soften that blow.
Speaking of blows, Nick’s doctor was walking through the door-- in clean scrubs. She looked down at her own attire. Dark red stains dotted the long skirt of her dress, and she shivered, subconsciously crossing her arms across her chest to cover the blood-soaked cuffs of her cardigan sweater. She’d always changed into clean scrubs before talking to families after particularly bloody codes, especially when the outcome was bad. There may have been no way to soften the blow, but nobody needed to see their loved one’s blood as they found out they had died. Oh God, Nick was dead! The doctor pursed his lips and removed a hand from his white coat, outstretching it towards her. “I’m Doctor Anderson, and you are Doctor…?” He trailed off as Annie widened her eyes in surprise, and she gulped.
“Morgan. Doctor Morgan,” she said quietly.
“Frank, the EMT, told me about what you did in the ambulance.” Annie shuddered at the first name of Nick’s at-large, estranged father. “We don’t typically insert chest tubes en-route to the hospital,” Dr. Anderson remarked.
“I thought he had a pneumothorax. I needed to relieve the pressure on the collapsed lung if he was going to have any chance of survival,” Annie told him, her voice barely above a whisper, still bracing herself for the worst.
“You thought right,” he answered with a little smirk. “Chances are you saved his life, Doctor.”
A tear broke loose and trailed down Annie’s cheek. “He’s alive?”
“He is.”
She smiled, then all the pent-up tears she’d been too worried to release suddenly flowed freely from her eyes and she let out a sob, bending over in an attempt to catch her breath. She knew, due to the extent of the injuries she’d seen herself, that Nick likely wasn’t out of the woods yet. However, in that moment, all that mattered was that he was still there. “How bad is it?” she asked, wiping at her cheeks with her fingertips as she tried to collect herself.
“Preliminary CT scan results show a possible splenic laceration, and damage to his liver and bowel. Of course, you know it’s impossible to completely assess the damage until the surgeon gets in there and sees what he’s dealing with. He’s in the OR now.” Annie nodded silently as he went on. “We drained a pericardial effusion and replaced the chest tube you put in while we coded him. You’re aware of the blood loss. He received 20 units in the ED and of course, they’ll have to replace it again while he’s in surgery. I can have one of the nurses show you to the OR waiting room. Would you like some clean scrubs to change into?” he asked, gesturing to her soiled clothing. “I’ll make sure the police know how to find you.”
Annie cocked her head to the side in confusion. “The police?”
“Well, he was stabbed multiple times, Dr. Morgan.”
He was stabbed. “Right,” Annie answered with a nod. Her face paled, and she found herself reaching blindly behind her for a chair. Nick was stabbed. Doctor mode had taken over shocked fiance mode so quickly that she hadn’t even stopped to take in the circumstances of the situation. Of course, she knew he’d been stabbed, but she’d been too busy assessing and attempting to treat his injuries that she didn’t have time to think about what that implied. Now, it was clear. Somebody out there wanted Nick dead-- just like her parents and her brother.
Run by emily_michele
