Page 19 of Stay with Me
“Walker!” a voice yelled from behind Brody. He was sooooo close, the ER doors were five feet in front of him. Brody had worked seven p to seven a but had stayed over because of a shortage. Honestly, there was a shortage every day. One of the civilian nurses was always calling off and one of the military would pick up the slack. He couldn’t remember a week in the three months that he’d been here that they’d had a day fully staffed. Turning, he saw Major Capanella walking toward him. Shit.
“Cap,” Brody said as he tried to juggle his backpack and coffee cup to one, salute, and two, not spill his coffee everywhere. The major waved off his salute. Thank goodness. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“I know you stayed late, can’t thank you enough for that, but could you stay a few more minutes? We’ve got what we think is a trauma coming in but have no clue the level or if it’s even actually trauma. I just sent my PA home. He was vomiting everywhere. Props to him for actually showing up but not the healthiest to be working in an emergency room. If you could just help us triage the patient, make sure they’re stable, and get the background while we round up a nurse or two, it would be greatly appreciated,” Capanella finished and gave him puppy dog eyes.
Brody closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Saying no to the attending physician who also outranked you in the department you worked in wasn’t a career builder. At this point, what did he have to go home to? He was nodding before he even opened his eyes. “An hour max?” Look at him being hopeful.
“Absolutely. I don’t need you to be the triage nurse for the ER. I just need you to meet the patrol car and triage the incoming patient.” Cap turned and walked back toward the nurses’ station. Brody was close on his heels, stowing his backpack under the desk. He placed his travel mug on the desk and picked up the call sheet from the radio.
“Twenty-four, bleeding from a knife wound. That’s it?” There was nothing else on the sheet. “Where’s his vitals? How much blood loss? What fucking crew called in this shit?” Brody was a little pissed and when he saw the ambulance crew, he was kicking someone’s ass. How were they going to be prepared with no information?
“He’s not coming by ambulance. He’s coming in via MP,” Shelly answered from across the station. “I took the call and the poor guy on the other end of the radio sounded two seconds from losing his lunch.”
“Oh, that’s great. They couldn’t call a crew to take care of this? At least to stabilize the patient for us?” Brody wasn’t going to lose his shit. He wasn’t going to.
“Guess it was going to take too long to get to them so they threw the guy into the cruiser and hit the lights. They should be rolling up within five.” Shelly shrugged.
“Okay, crew let’s get room…” Brody looked at the board to see what rooms were available. “Four looks clear and should be big enough if we need to call a level one after triage.” Brody looked down at his uniform trying to decide if he had time to change into some scrubs. Teach him to take the time to change before leaving.
“Trauma arrival at the door. Trauma arrival at the door,” a tinny voice came over the intercom. No time to change now. Brody grabbed a pair of gloves and went into work mode. He had this.
Brody pulled the gurney from in front of the desk and pushed it toward the doors with two techs following. The sun blinded him as the doors opened but he had enough vision to see the MP SUV in the circle. A soldier jumped out of the driver’s side, running around the back. He threw open the door and started grabbing at the person in the seat.
“Wait! Let us come around with the bed,” Brody commanded. Look at his officer voice come out again. Yeah, he was primarily a nurse, but he was also an officer. The soldier immediately halted what he was doing and moved out of Brody’s way. “Okay, Jared, you shift to grab his legs. I’ll handle his upper body. Canyou squeeze between me and the door?” When Jared was down near Brody’s hip, they each reached and lifted the man out of the seat and onto the gurney that Talia was holding steady.
Brody started looking the patient over as Jared secured him and Talia started pushing it into the ER. A quick glance told him that the patient had a bandage on his upper arm and something against his side but Brody didn’t see any other visible wounds. No blood on his head and it looked like drippage or splatter on the rest of his uniform. Okay, this wasn’t going to be as bad as they were led to believe. Could be that the soldier who drove the… a glance at the front of the uniform revealed the same rank that Brody wore… lieutenant in panicked.
“Shelly, can you take information from this soldier while we work on the lieutenant?” Brody said over his shoulder as they rolled the patient into four. “Okay, let’s get his top and T-shirt off. Get him on the monitor and first set of vitals. Looks like they put a bandage on his arm. Not sure a tourniquet would’ve done any good with the amount of blood I’m seeing on his chest and side. Need to remove it to triage the damage. Get some gauze ready for pressure as we remove it. This top is toast already, so let’s cut the sleeve and make it easier on us.” Brody reached to pull his trauma shears from his thigh pocket and came up empty handed. Fuck, his shears were in his bag. “Someone hand me trauma shears,” he called out. It didn’t take the crew more than a minute before a pair were in his hand. “Okay, here we go.” A quick slice and the sleeve fell away from the man’s arm up to the gauze. “Talia, you’ve got the pressure dressing ready?”
“Right here, Brody,” she answered from his left and Brody saw her hands move closer.
“Okay, removing in three, two, one.” As he got to one, Brody cut into the bandage, releasing the tension that it had on thewound and blood spurted out. “Shit. Pressure now! Someone get Capanella here yesterday.”
“What’ve we got?” Cap asked as he took over Talia’s position.
“Not completely sure, sir, but when the bandage was removed, blood spurted. Can’t see how deep the wound is, however it looks to be about four inches long. I asked Shelly to get details from the soldier who brought in Lieutenant…” Brody hesitated as he searched the man’s chest for his name tape. “Nolan,” he whispered. Brody’s eyes shot up to the lieutenant’s face. Fuck! How did he miss that it was Drew when he did his first visual assessment? How the hell was Drew in his ER? He hadn’t realized that Drew was stationed here.
“Vitals?” Capanella demanded, not noticing that Brody had frozen and was in shock. He needed to pull it together. Brody shook his head and stared at the monitor.
“BP stable but low. Ninety-one over sixty. Heart rate, one-fifteen and respiratory twenty-two,” Brody rattled off Dre— nope, can’t go there, the patient’s vitals. Needed to distance himself and pull into his professional mindset.
“Okay, let’s start two lines. One saline, the other, let’s get his blood type and hang a unit. We need to stabilize him so we can get him into surgery. Someone call his command and get information on him. Brody?” Capanella turned to him.
“Sir? I went to school with the patient. He has family locally. Do you want me to reach out to them?” That might skirt HIPAA but… it was Drew on the gurney. Brody knew he hadn’t deleted Mike and Trish’s contact information. Every so often, he saw their numbers and thought to call them but hesitated. They’d told him he was welcome at their house. Brody didn’t know how to handle someone giving a shit about him without getting paid because looking back at his foster families? Yeah, they treatedhim okay but obviously he didn’t mean anything to them as none of them kept him or even kept in touch with him.
Capanella looked up from Drew’s arm and paused. “You know the patient? Are you going to be able to stay impartial? You good to stay with the patient for a bit?”
Brody was nodding before the doctor stopped talking. Could he stay impartial? He’d do his best. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter Twelve
Brody couldn’t believe Drew was on the gurney in front of him. He honestly didn’t think he’d see Drew again after that kiss they shared. Had Drew appeared in a fantasy or two when Brody was jerking off? He’d be lying if he answered no to that question. Christ.
“Lieutenant Walker, are you okay?” Talia asked from beside Brody. He shook then nodded his head. He wasn’t sure what he was really.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just never—” A groan from Drew cut Brody off. “Drew, can you hear me?”
“Where the fuck am I?” pause, “what the fuck happened?” pause, “oh shit, is Kali okay?” After the third question, Drew started to push himself up.
