Page 7 of Free to Fall

“Get the rest of his clothes off.” I lean over our John Doe’s chest as the other members of the ER team slap leads on him once they’ve cut away unnecessary clothes. Pressing the stethoscope against his neck, I listen to the erratic sound of my patient’s breathing. I’m afraid I’m going to have to intubate him very soon. “Karimat, prep an intubation tray.”

“Seven and a half?” She calls out to confirm the size of the tube.

“Please. Now, sir? Blink once for yes; twice for no.”

He blinks once.

“Does it hurt when you breathe in?”

Once.

“Any pain in your head?”

Two blinks.

“What about ...” I don’t get to finish my next question before I snarl, “Damn it. His pressure’s dropping.”

Rena, another trauma nurse, calls out, “No sensation radial or medial.”

“Give five of morphine. Right away.”

“You got it, Gore.”

I take precious seconds to scan him, trying to discern where else he could be bleeding. Karimat offers, “Was he shot in the belly?”

“No, I looked. The belly’s clear. Unless ...” It hits me. “Roll him!” Together we roll the patient to his side, and that’s where I find a pool of blood the EMTs missed. “Whoa! Knife wound!”

“I thought it was supposed to be a gunshot wound?” Rena wonders.

My fingers graze the serrated edge of a knife wound as Karimat snaps, “Does it matter much now?”

“He’s bleeding out. Push four bags of O-Neg, stat.” Rolling him back, I snatch up the intubation and call out, “Now, listen up, boys and girls. We’re not losing him before he gets to the OR. Get ready to bag him.”

I’ve just inserted the tube when Karimat is there with tape to hold it in place. She places the bag on the side so I can roll the guy, trying to clamp off the bleeder causing him to lose fluid faster than I can order it into him.

It’s a bloody ballet, but by the time we rush him out of Trauma One, John Doe has a chance that he didn’t have twenty minutes before.

I shove him into the elevator and notice two men loitering in the lobby. Their jaws are rigid and they hold some of the same features as the man lying on my table. Holding their gaze, I blindly slap the button to close the elevator. I don’t have time to give them reassurance about their father, brother, son—whoever this man is. Right now, every second counts.

Every one.

Three hours later, I exit the same elevator from where I’ve been upstairs with my “John Doe.” The surgical scrubs I’m wearing have seen better days and I’m spent. Karimat meets me at the elevator with a cup of coffee. “I heard you scrubbed in since Jensen claims you’re the only reason he made it to the OR. Come on, Gore. You gave him half a chance of survival.”

My eyes fixed on the two men fixated like pillars against the wall. They’re waiting exactly where they were when I brought our John Doe upstairs. I murmur, “Someone knew just where to strike to do the most damage. They shot him before sliding the knife upward to ensure there was no hope of repairing the artery.”

She frowns. “You think the shot was just to take him down?”

“I’m positive of it.”

“What did they take out?”

I run through a litany of organs that were damaged. The elevator doors open behind me and Moser exits with a sharp nod in my direction. He’s no longer in his perfectly pressed suit and tie, but in surgical scrubs that match my own. After he passes us, I confide to Karimat something that might not have made it through the hospital grapevine, “Moser scrubbed in at one point.”

Her brows wing upward, her only indicator of the shock she must be reeling from. “Why?”

“To see what condition he’d be in if he made it through the surgery. Neuro was slammed tonight. The surgical attending begged.”

“I’m impressed. John Doe got the chief.”

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