The Chase (7 page)

“How serious is that?”

“Barring any complications, it should heal just fine, and he’ll only have a small scar where the chest tube was inserted,” Dr. Adams replied. “The only thing we have to watch out for at this time is risk of infection.”

“How long will he need to stay on the ventilator?”

“At least until he wakes up. At that time, Dr. Hollins, your husband’s pulmonologist, will assess his weaning parameters to determine if he can be extubated.”

“When do you think that will be? When will he wake up?”

Dr. Adams cleared his throat. “That’s the next thing I want to discuss with you. Your husband has what we call traumatic brain injury, or TBI. It’s a closed head injury, meaning there was no penetration of the skull. I’ve called in a neurologist to consult—”

They were interrupted by a movement in the doorway. A tall African-American man stepped into the room.

“Hello,” he said, extending his hand to Anne. “I’m Dr. Martin.”

“Dr. Martin is the neurologist I was just starting to tell you about,” Dr. Adams said.

Anne reluctantly withdrew her hand from Doug’s. “Hello.”

Dr. Martin gave her hand a swift, firm squeeze, then turned to Dr. Adams. “Okay. Bring me up to speed on Mr. Cummings’s condition.”

Dr. Adams picked his clipboard up off the stretcher and flipped through a few pages. “We ran a CAT scan, which was normal and showed no signs of a skull fracture. His GCS is three.”

“What does GCS stand for?” Anne asked.

“Glasgow coma score. It’s a scoring system we use to quantify consciousness following a head injury. It measures eye, verbal, and motor response.”

“Is a GCS of three a good score?”

Dr. Martin hesitated for a moment before responding. “The scores range from three to fifteen, with fifteen being the most favorable response.”

“
He’s at the bottom of the scale?”

“Yes, but that could change at any time, and hopefully it will.”

Anne stared at Doug with a renewed sense of alarm. “Can’t you do anything to help him regain consciousness?”

“Our job right now is to monitor him closely and support him clinically while we allow Mother Nature to take her course. I’ve already spoken with ICU and they have a bed available, so we’ll move him there as soon as we’ve run a few more tests. I want to see an MRI and an EEG. In the meantime, we’ll keep him on the ventilator and administer fluids and medication to keep down any brain swelling that might occur.”

Anne took a deep breath. “What are the odds that Doug won’t come out of the coma? Or that when he does, he’ll have brain damage?”

Dr. Martin met her gaze. “Mrs. Cummings, I’ll do everything in my power to help your husband. But I wouldn’t be being honest with you if I didn’t tell you I think you should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”

Tears stung Anne’s eyes and she looked away. It was the answer she had feared he would give.

Dr. Martin placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to take a little while for us to perform the tests and move your husband to ICU, so now would be a good time for you to take a break; maybe get something to eat. Do you have anyone here with you, or someone you’d like to call?”

“I have a friend in the waiting room.”

“Would you like me to have someone bring her back here?”

“Yes, please. Her name is Kendall Waters.”

“All right. I’ll have someone go and get her.

“Thank you,” Anne said quietly, turning back to Doug.

K
endall turned her Jeep into the entrance drive at the Equine Medical Center and paused briefly while the metal gates slid open. She felt a little guilty about leaving Anne at the hospital alone, but when Anne had asked her to drive over to the EMC to check on Chancellor, she had jumped at the chance. She hated hospitals with a passion, and it had taken all her willpower not to lose it in front of Anne when she had seen Doug hooked up to all those machines.

She followed the long driveway around to the unloading area and parked next to the horse ambulance, which stood empty, with its rear doors open and the ramp down. The entrance doors were locked, since it was Saturday, so Kendall rang the after-hours bell and waited for someone to let her in. A few moments passed without a response. She pressed the button again and held it longer.

The door opened towards her almost immediately, and a familiar-looking woman stood in the doorway. “I’m sorry it took so long for me to get here. I was helping with a foal who wasn’t being very cooperative. Hey, you’re Wellington’s owner, aren’t you?”

Kendall remembered the woman. She was a veterinary technician who had taken a liking to Wellington when he’d been in for his colic surgery. “Yes, I am. You’re Darlene, right? I remember how wonderful you were to Wellington when he was here.”

Darlene blushed. “It was my pleasure. He was such sweetheart to take care of. How’s he doing?”

“Just great. He’s fat and happy.”

“Give him a pat for me, will you?”

Kendall smiled. “I sure will. Listen, the reason I’m here is to check up on a horse the ambulance brought in. His name is Chancellor.”

“A big bay, right?”

Kendall nodded.

“They just took him into surgery.”

“
Surgery?
Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

Darlene shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t. I was out in ‘A’ Barn when they were examining him. Do you want to watch the surgery from the observation room?”

“That would be great. Who’s doing the surgery? Do you know?”

Darlene moved to one side to allow Kendall to enter. “Dr. Carey.”

That was good
, Kendall thought. Ned Carey was the most senior surgeon on staff at the EMC.

Darlene said, “If I can find someone who knows more about his condition, I’ll send him to the observation room to talk to you.”

“Thanks, I’d really appreciate that.”

As they walked down the aisle, Kendall sniffed the medicinal scent of Betadine mingled with the pungent garlic odor of DSMO. “I swear, if someone blindfolded me and brought me here, I’d know I was at the EMC because of the smell in the air.”

Darlene smiled. “I’m so used to it, I don’t even notice it anymore.”

They reached the door to the observation room and Kendall paused in front of it. “Thanks for letting me in, Darlene. I’ll see you later.”

“No problem,” Darlene said with a wave. “I’m going to check on that ornery foal again.”

Kendall opened the door and saw a man dressed in green surgical scrubs standing with his back towards her. He was looking through the glass window into the operating room, and he glanced over his shoulder at her as she entered the room.

She approached him. “Hi. I’m Kendall Waters. I’m here to check on a horse named Chancellor. I heard he was in the operating room.”

The man nodded at her. “Yeah, they wheeled him in a little while ago,” he said with a slow drawl.

“Do you know why he’s in surgery?”

The man nodded as he turned back towards the window. “He has a chest wound and a punctured lung.”

Kendall walked to the window and looked down into the operating room. She had observed more than her fair share of equine medical procedures, but surgery was never an easy sight for her to see.

Chancellor lay on his back on the operating table in the center of the room, with all four legs up in the air. His hooves were covered with plastic OB sleeves and a massive band of white tape secured an IV line to his neck. A respirator tube protruded from his mouth, and an anesthesiologist sat on a stool near his head, monitoring the equipment. The anesthesiologist said something to Ned Carey and gave him a thumbs-up sign, and Ned lowered the scalpel to Chancellor’s chest.

“I can’t watch this part,” Kendall said, turning away from the window.

The man smiled but didn’t shift his gaze away from the surgery. “Are you his owner?”

Kendall shook her head. “No, his owner is in the hospital. His wife asked me if I would come over here and find out how Chancellor is.”

The man didn’t respond, and Kendall studied him as he stood observing the surgery. She had heard that the EMC had hired a new vet who had just finished his residency at Cornell, and she wondered if that’s who he was. His age seemed about right; she guessed he was in his early thirties. He was tall, probably over six feet, and looked lean and fairly muscular, although it was hard to tell because of the baggy scrubs he was wearing. His skin was tanned a golden brown, and his hair was sun-streaked and a bit unruly. He had a rugged air about him, and Kendall noticed he was wearing cowboy boots.

“How is he?” the man asked after a few minutes, turning to half face her. She noticed that his eyes were a very pale blue. And expressionless. Not unfriendly, but not warm, either. “Chancellor’s owner. He was the guy driving the rig, right?”

Kendall sighed and ran her hands up her bare arms. “Yes, he was the driver. He’s in critical condition. He’s hooked up to a million machines and he’s in a coma. They were moving him to intensive care when I left.”

The man grimaced. “I figured he was in pretty bad shape, from the condition of his vehicle.”

“You saw it?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Then it dawned on Kendall that he was probably the horse ambulance’s driver. “Oh, you must be Steve. I’ve heard great things about you.”

“Nope, I’m not. But I agree with all the good things you’ve heard about Steve. He did a terrific job today.”

“Why were you there?”

He hesitated for a moment. “I was just passing by and I stopped to help.”

“Are you a vet?”

“No.”

“You’re just a Good Samaritan?”

His eyes narrowed and he regarded her with a long gaze. “You’ve got a lot of questions.”

There was an edge to his tone, and Kendall flinched, then hated herself for it.
This man wasn’t Peter. He wasn’t going to hit her
. She took a deep breath and sat down in a chair against the wall, suddenly feeling painfully out of place in her linen dress and pearls.

“I’m just trying to put two and two together,” she said. “I don’t know any of the details of the accident, and since you’re here watching the operation, and you’re wearing scrubs, I figured you were a vet. Or a technician, or something.”

He glanced down at his clothing. “No, I’m not a vet.” His manner was somewhat friendlier. “My clothes were soaked from the rain and a nice young lady offered to put them in the dryer for me. She gave me these to wear while they’re drying.”

“Well then, that clears that up.” Kendall picked up a dog-eared issue of
Practical Horseman
from a side table and began leafing through it.

He turned his back to the window and leaned against the sill, folding his arms across his chest. “Look, I’m sorry I got testy. It’s been a long day and I’m exhausted.” He ran a hand through his hair and stretched his neck from side to side. “I’m Jake, by the way. What did you say your name was?”

“Kendall.”

His eyes lost their iciness and his mouth slid into a slow smile. “Nice to meet you, Kendall.”

“Nice to meet you, too.” She set the magazine back down. “So will you tell me what happened?”

Jake shifted his weight against the windowsill. “I don’t know any details about what caused the accident, but the rig went off the road and down a mountainside. The Range Rover ended up headfirst into a tree, and the trailer came loose and flipped. It ended up on its side farther down the slope. By the time I got there, the ambulance had already taken your friend away. Chancellor was still inside the trailer, and I helped Steve get him out.”

“Does Chancellor have any other injuries, besides his chest injury?”

He shook his head. “Nothing that seems serious. He has some cuts and scrapes, but his legs look clean and he is moving remarkably well considering all he went through.”

“How serious is his chest injury?”

Jake glanced over his shoulder at the operating room. “It’s a pretty dirty wound, so the doc’s concerned about the risk of infection. They’ll clean it up as much as they can during the surgery. The doc said Chancellor’s prospects are good, but he’s been through a lot, and he was in a weakened state going into surgery.”

“Not to mention the risk of making it through recovery. That’s always the scariest part of equine surgery for me. Have you ever watched a horse come out of anesthesia?”

“Yeah, they usually scramble all over the place trying to get up. You think they’re going to break a leg. And, unfortunately, sometimes they do. But Chancellor’s a smart horse. I think he’ll do okay.”

“But he’s so skittish.”

“He’s high-strung, that’s for sure. But he’s not one of those horses who doesn’t care if he hurts himself.”

Kendall frowned quizzically at him. “You sound like you know Chancellor pretty well for having just met him.”

He nodded, giving her another one of his slow smiles. “Yeah, we had quite a bonding experience this afternoon.”

She studied him for a moment. “Is that why you’re still here?”

Jake shrugged. “I guess so. I figured his owner probably wouldn’t be showing up for the surgery, so I decided to stay and make sure he got through the operation all right.”