"Scissors," he commands. His voice is different now. The arrogance is gone, replaced by absolute focus.
He snips the pericardial sac.
Whoosh.
Old, dark blood gushes out, releasing the pressure.
The heart, suddenly free, gives a weak flutter.
"Come on," Maxwell whispers. He reaches his handsintothe patient’s chest. He cups the heart.
I watch him. It’s mesmerizing. His hands are elegant, evencovered in gore. He begins internal cardiac massage, squeezing the heart rhythmically.Squeeze. Release. Squeeze. Release.
"I’ve got a laceration on the right ventricle," Maxwell says, his eyes locked on the organ. "I need a suture. Prolene. 4-0."
"Working on the abdomen," I say, diving in below the diaphragm. "Liver is shattered. I’m packing it."
We are working shoulder to shoulder. My arm brushes his. He is warm. He smells like expensive soap and metallic iron.
"Suture," the nurse says, handing it to Maxwell.
He stops the massage. He has to stitch a beating heart while standing in a pool of blood, with rock music blaring and people screaming in the next bay.
And he does it.
I pause for a microsecond to watch. His hands aren't shaking. He throws a stitch with a speed and precision that defies physics.Loop, tie, cut.
"Ventricle repaired," Maxwell says. "Rhythm is returning."
"Sinus tach," a nurse calls out from the head of the bed. "We have a pulse! BP is coming up. Eighty over fifty."
"Liver is packed," I say, shoving surgical sponges into the abdominal cavity to stem the flow. "He’s stable enough to move."
I look up at Maxwell.
His face is splattered with blood. A single droplet has landed on the lens of his glasses. His hair is finally, mercifully, a little messed up.
He looks wild. He looks magnificent.
Our eyes lock over the open chest cavity of the man we just saved. The air between us is electric. It’s a high better than any drug. We cheated death, and we did it together.
"Good save," I breathe, my voice rough.
Maxwell stares at me. His pupils are blown wide. He looksat the destruction we’ve caused—the blood on the floor, the open chest, the sheer violence of it.
"This," Maxwell says, pulling his hands out of the patient, "is barbaric."
"Did he die?" I ask.
"No."
"Then it’s medicine."
"Let’s get him upstairs," Maxwell says, stepping back and snapping into his "Chief" persona. "Before he catches a staph infection from the air in this godforsaken basement."
We rush the gurney to the elevators.
Twenty minutes later, the rush is over. The patient is in the ICU. The rest of the pileup victims have been triaged. The ER is quieting down to its normal level of chaos.
