Authors: Maris Black
On my way home, I pass the Blackwood motel, a horrible little place that looks like it hasn’t been updated for several decades. I’ve never paid much attention to it before. It’s one of those pieces of the scenery that you’ve looked at all your life but never truly
seen
. Now that I’m finally seeing it, all I can think about are drug dealers, prostitutes, and killers. I shiver to think of Corey sleeping on a dirty bed in that wretched, dark place.
A little girl with long brown hair skips down the breezeway, looking fresh and lovely and completely out of place. It’s like a scene in a horror movie when you know something awful is about to happen. It breaks my heart to see her there. No decent human being should have to stay in a place like that, least of all a child.
I look away, because I don’t have time to worry about shit like that right now. I need to go home, shower, and mentally prepare for my night at the hospital. I owe it to my patients to be a hundred percent. Hung over, reeking of beer, and worrying about neglected children and group sex is definitely not a hundred percent. I’ve got to pull it together.
My house is empty and quiet, much too large for just me. I hope to have a family someday, but at the moment my house feels like the Grand Canyon. A big, hollow echo chamber with nothing in it but air, furniture and silence. I shower and dress, then relax on the sofa with a book, and as usual I’m relieved when it’s finally time to go to the hospital.
It’s not particularly busy in the ER tonight. I make some rounds, visit with my patients that have been admitted in the last few days, chart their progress. I release a couple of them, then I return to the ER, where it’s still relatively quiet. No real emergencies yet, and I cross my fingers that there are none. I would never wish anything bad on another person just to relieve my boredom.
“I’m headed to the on-call room,” I tell the nurses. “Let me know if you need me.”
“Oh, Christina wanted you to call her when you get a chance,” says Julie, one of my best night nurses.
Nodding, I trudge off to the spartan on-call room and collapse onto the bed. I pull out my cell and dial Christina’s number, dreading talking to her. Maybe I should have just stuck with the plan to dump her today.
“Hey, babe,” she says in a cheerful voice that doesn’t exactly jibe with my mood. “Just checking to see if you’ve made a decision about Corey yet.”
“Jeez, woman,” I laugh. “Is that all you think about?”
“Hmmm…” She is quiet for a while, and the moments stretch painfully between us. She’s not a terribly scintillating conversationalist, but she’s hot. Hot women can get away with being a little dull, I guess. And she’s good at being social, which is a good quality for a doctor’s wife.
Stop making excuses for her, Ben.
“Have you ever looked at the Blackwood motel?” I ask. “I mean
really
looked at it?
“Yes, and it’s disgusting. I can’t believe Corey is actually living there. He’s going to have to do some extra washing before he touches this body.”
“There’s a little kid staying there, Chris.” My heart squeezes remembering her innocent beauty surrounded by the darkness of that horrible place.
“Probably some whore’s kid. Look, I have to go to the store before bed. There’s a dress I’ve been wanting, and they close in twenty minutes, so I don’t really have time to chit-chat.”
“By all means, focus on the important things. I’m going to watch a little TV before the ER starts hopping. You know it usually breaks loose after ten.”
Sure enough, ten o’clock rolls around, and with it comes a rash of hypochondriacs, or
regulars
as we call them. Something about knowing everything in town is closed brings them to the emergency room. Maybe it’s plain, old-fashioned boredom. Right now I know exactly how they feel, but I’m also uncharacteristically restless, which gives the boredom a sharp edge that’s hard to handle.
“Hydrate Mrs. Watson,” I tell Julie. “Put her on two liters of O2, and give her a room for twenty-three hours. And get a blood gas on Mr. Frank.”
“Yes, sir,” she says and hurries off to tend to my orders.
Right when my butt hits the chair behind the ER desk, the emergency radio buzzes to life. “
We’ve got a possible heart attack in progress. Arriving at the patient’s home now. Stand by for ETA.
”
I recognize the voice on the radio as Corey’s. This might be a hell of a first night for him.
We all rush to prepare the ER for the possibility of a code, rolling the crash cart out and getting the defibrillator in position. This is how it is some nights. You’re bored to tears for hours, and then suddenly all hell breaks loose and it doesn’t seem like you can get things ready fast enough. One night we had two gunshot victims and one gut stab wound in the ER at the same time. All from separate incidents, and all fatal, which is really freaking odd for such a small town.
A woman’s voice buzzes over the radio shortly after we’ve gotten the room ready. “
ETA one minute.
”
“Damn, that was quick,” I mutter to the nurse nearest me. “Must be bad.”
“
Patient is unconscious, not breathing, no pulse. CPR has been initiated,
” the female voice continues.
So Corey is performing CPR. I find myself trying to picture him doing it, wondering if he’s got good form, or if I’m going to have to chew him up and spit him out like he said. I chuckle bitterly to myself. We medical workers have sick senses of humor that surface at inappropriate times. One of the hazards of the job.
The swinging door to the ER bursts open, and the stretcher is wheeled in by the regular female EMT they have on night shift. I don’t remember her name, but she’s been working here for a long time. She’s bagging the patient with an AMBU bag connected to an LMA tube that’s inflated and lodged snugly into the back of his throat, and she’s trying to wheel the stretcher at the same time. Corey is walking alongside the stretcher doing chest compressions. A sheen of perspiration slicks his face and throat, probably more from nerves than exertion.
I meet them just inside the door and help push the stretcher into the prepped area and draw the curtain. In my mind, I feel very distinctly the dropping of what I like to call my
ice shield
, and my brain shuts down to everything but the task at hand— saving this man’s life. Corey is pounding out perfect chest compressions at a rate of more than a hundred per minute. He’s a machine, and his muscles are made for this kind of work. There’s no vanity in him whatsoever, only the desperation of a man trying to force another to live.
The respiratory therapist rushes in and hooks the AMBU bag tubing to the oxygen flowmeter, cranks it to a hundred percent, and takes over bagging the patient. Julie is getting the IV in the patient’s arm and administering epinephrine. I have my night staff trained well. Mistakes cost lives, and we can’t afford that, especially at our little underfunded hospital.
“How long has he been down?” I ask Corey as I slap the defibrillator pads onto the patient’s chest.
“Two minutes,” he pants. “Wife called 911 for shortness of breath and chest pains. He collapsed the minute we pulled into the yard. He had a pulse when we loaded him up, but one minute out, he coded… I just had time to tube him, strap it, and get CPR started.”
He continues pumping the man’s chest with a shocking intensity. He’s strong. Stronger than any medical worker I’ve ever seen, and just as determined. He gets a good compression and full recoil every time, which is surprising, because I was under the impression he was new to the field.
I hear the patient’s wife in the waiting area crying, begging someone to tell her if her husband is okay. “He’s not dead, is he? Is he
dead
?
” she screams. I hate dealing with the families, but I feel so responsible to them. It’s easily the most painful part of the job. In a case like this, the family members are the ones hurting, not the patient. The man on our table has no idea what’s going on, but his wife is in the worst agony imaginable.
“It’s lucky he waited for you to get there before he coded, huh?” I ask Corey.
“Yeah, he might just have a chance.”
“We’ve got a rhythm,” Julie calls, and I check the defibrillator screen.
“Yep, he’s in V-Fib, guys. I’m going to shock.” I press the button on the defibrillator, listening to the familiar siren-like whooping sound of the machine charging to deliver its juice. “Everybody clear,” I call loudly, and everyone stops what they’re doing and steps back from the stretcher. The patient’s muscles contract, tensing his entire body as the electrical current runs through him. Even after years of working codes, that body spasm still gives me the creeps every time.
“Resume CPR,” I call as soon as the shock is over, and everyone jumps back to their spots to continue chest compressions and bagging for another sixty seconds. “There’s no change. Give him the amiodarone,” I tell Julie, who already has it at the ready and pushes it into his IV.
“I’m shocking again,” I tell them after a minute still with no change. The machine whoops and charges again. “Everybody clear.” They jump back, and the patient’s body tenses again. Corey is always the last to let go, pushing right up to the last second. That’s good. He knows his job is the most important.
At this point, I begin to worry. It’s been five minutes. The pallor of death is creeping over his skin, a look I know far too well. We’re smack dab in the middle of the danger zone now, the time frame when death starts to take hold. After ten minutes, there will be very little chance of getting him back. My heart is beating hard and fast, as if it can make up for the lack of activity in his.
Dammit.
I open my mouth to order more CPR when suddenly the machine beeps, and I look at the screen.
“We’ve got a sinus rhythm.” I hold up my hand to halt CPR. “He’s breathing spontaneously. Put him on the vent on assist-control.” The respiratory therapist fires up the machine and fiddles with the controls. Relief washes over me like cool water, and I can see the same relief on the faces of my team.
Corey wipes his forehead with the back of his forearm as sweat slides off of him. He’s worked hard for this man, and it’s paid off.
I turn to Julie, whose face still hasn’t quite let go of the worry lines. “Go tell the wife we’re stabilizing him. He’s on his way out of the woods, but he’s not quite out yet. Tell her she did great calling 911 so fast.”
“Yes, sir,” she says, moving quickly out of the room.
I look at Corey. He’s not worn out, but I can see he’s winded from exertion and stress. Like a runner recovering from a lap, he has his hands on his hips, and his breaths are coming fast and hard, his chest heaving slightly. I clap him lightly on the shoulder. “You did good.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to annihilate me?”
“I thought it was chew you up and spit you out.”
He smiles. “They said that, too.”
“Damn. Does everyone around here think I’m a monster?” I glance at the respiratory therapist, who looks away nervously, and I throw my hands up. “I guess so.”
Corey crinkles his nose and laughs, but quietly so as not to get the attention of the family of the man we’re trying to stabilize. If families only knew what kind of stuff goes on behind closed doors in a hospital, they’d think people in the medical profession were the most insensitive bunch on the planet. But we need our defense mechanisms, our quirks of survival. It’s not easy dancing with death day in and day out.
Julie pokes her head in through the curtain. “The ambulance to County is on its way, Dr. Hardy. Should be here in half an hour.”
“Good. Come check his vitals again, and keep a close eye on him.”
“Yes, sir,” she nods and pumps the blood pressure cuff.
“Where are you sending him?” Corey asks, and I remind myself that he’s just learning how we do things around here.
“He’s going to the county hospital forty miles north of Blackwood. We don’t have an ICU here. We’re what they call an urgent care facility, which means we can admit non-critical patients to our floor, but anyone who is critical is transferred out.”
“Wow,” he says. “I think in Atlanta they don’t send anyone out, except maybe to the Mayo Clinic or Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, in which case they’re flown out.”
“Oh, it’s big news when the helicopter comes here. Half the town shows up to watch. They stand in a huge circle around the front parking lot, which doubles as a make do heli-pad. If it’s the middle of the night, some of the ladies even show up in their robes and slippers. It’s really pretty insane.”
“Do they bring popcorn?”
I cock an eyebrow at him. “You think you’re joking, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.”
“How do they even know the copter is coming?”
I shake my head. “Police scanners? Phone calls? I have no idea. That old saying about word traveling fast in a small town is true. You’ll learn that lesson soon enough, I’m sure. Everyone knows everyone else’s business around here, and sometimes they just make it up.”
After we load the patient onto the ambulance and wish him and his wife well, we all retire to the ER where we can finally relax and reflect on what we were able to accomplish. Corey’s ambulance partner sits in a chair in the corner, leans back and closes her eyes. Julie takes off her gloves and throws them into the trash can.