It backs into the bay, snow falling from its wheel wells in clumps.
I am running before it stops.
The back doors swing open.
A firefighter jumps out, his turnout gear covered in iceand mud.
"We have three!" the firefighter yells. "The girl, the driver, and the Doc!"
The Doc.
My heart restarts. It slams against my ribs with a violence that hurts.
Paramedics swarm the truck. They pull out the first gurney. The girl. Screaming in pain, but alive.
They pull out the second. The driver. Unconscious, intubated with the tube Jax placed. Alive.
They pull out the third.
The world narrows down to a pinpoint.
Jax is strapped to a backboard. He has a rigid C-collar around his neck. His eyes are closed. His face is a terrifying shade of grey-blue. There is a laceration on his temple that is bleeding freely, staining the orange head blocks dark red.
He is not moving.
"Jax!"
I shove past a paramedic. I don't care about protocol. I don't care who sees.
I grab the side of the gurney.
"Status!" I bark.
"Hypothermic!" the medic yells as we run toward the trauma doors. "Core temp is 32 degrees Celsius. BP is 80 over 50. Pulse is bradycardic. He took a hell of a ride, Doc. The bus rolled three times. He shielded the driver with his own body."
Of course he did. The idiot. The hero.
We burst into the Trauma Bay.
"Trauma One!" I command. "I want warm fluids! I want the Bear Hugger! Get X-ray in here now!"
We slide him onto the trauma table.
I am the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. I do not treat blunt force trauma. I do not run codes in the ER.
But tonight, this is my OR.
"Scissors!" I yell.
I grab the shears. I cut through his leather jacket. I cut through the scrubs I watched him put on this morning. I strip him down to his skin.
He is shivering. Violent, full-body tremors that shake the table. That’s good. Shivering means he can still generate heat.
"Jax," I say, leaning over him. I cup his face with my frozen hands. "Jax, can you hear me?"
His eyelids flutter. They open a slit.
The hazel eyes are glassy, unfocused. Pupils are sluggish.
