The snapping of her gloves further pulled my attention away to focus solely on her. She clenched her fingers tightly together in front of her waist—a bad habit I loathed. One I’d talked to her countless times about in the OR. A distraction needing redirection in crucial times with no time to properly train her out of it.
Pavloving worked up to a point. Useless without constant upkeep.
“No.”
“‘No’?” Beth whipped her head around to stare at me. “We should be prepared.”
“We are,” came from near the counter. “What else would we be standing here for?”
Even with the mask covering half of her face, her expression visibly hardened. “It’s not as if due-diligence can be overdone.”
Untrue.
In fact, plenty of things were easily overdone. Such as this conversation.
A scoff followed my attention turning back to the automatic doors, ignored effortlessly once the red flashing lights of an incoming ambulance flooded the drop-off. Both nurses tensed, the ER growing dim with a hush of silence.
The sound of a vehicle slamming into park, followed with doors popping open. EMTs landed on firm feet, hustling to get the patient out from the back and onto solid ground. One straddled the still body while the others rolled it to our doors. Blood coating the hand holding the wounds shut, another tilting the man’s head back to allow for proper oxygen flow while in transit.
Twin doors flew open, a wave of anxiety palpably washing over my staff the second the stretcher met tiled floors.
The EMT at the front of the pack—Vance Lenfolt, veteran volunteer—met my eyes first. “Victim has two stab wounds, five inches deep and three inches apart. Kitchen knife. We’ve got him stabilized but we’re not sure what’s been nicked. He lost a lot of blood on the way over.”
Black uniform on the victim. Gold emblem at the breast. Insignia of Palmerston PD. Young, too. “Coded?”
“Not this one.”
A good start.
The EMT straddling him had a firm hold on the man’s stomach area—wounds located—his shoulder shaking from the effort. Sixteen and a half solid minutes of packing a wound, not exactly for the weak of heart. A commendable effort for keeping the man under him alive.
Nodding, I grabbed onto the stretcher. “OR 4. Let’s move.”
Both nurses locked into gear, jogging with us and replacing the EMTs aside from our wound holder. Two more met us halfway down the hall, another inside the OR. Six of us in total, enough manpower to lift the victim up from the stretcher and onto an operating table. The EMT holding him together jumped down now that we had a handle on things. Grab the bottom sheet, shift.
A steady calm bathed us in routine.
Scrubbing under the nails, wedging the coarse material between the webbing of my fingers, rinsing the dirt and grim of living in a hospital away.
Mask covering my face, cap on, two gloves down, a gown wrapped around my body, and my surgical glasses shoved over my eyes.
“Two of O neg.” My voice rang through the OR, nurses rotating in a controlled motion. “Violet, check vitals. Claudia, prep him for the transfusion. Beth, my hands.”
“Yes, doctor!” they called in unison.
“Where is anesthesiology?”
“Right here.” Beth elbowed the OR’s touchpad to open the doors, Dr. Stines marching in with his machine in tow the second they folded apart.
“Where do you want me?” he asked.
I nodded for the left of the bedside, waiting for him to pass before striding over myself. My staff worked in tandem to prep the man who lay on the verge of death on my table. Instruments ripped open and set down onto sterilized trays, fresh packing material to keep pressure on his wounds, butterfly needles finding healthy veins for an IV drip and a blood transfusion underway.
His chest was fluttering, panicked gasps of breath quickly muffled by an oxygen mask coming down to cover his mouth. Strained vitals ticked away on the monitors surrounding thebed, a downturn toward his condition despite the fight his body was putting up to keep him Earth-side.
An entire mess on my table.
Dying was never glamorous. Quite often gross and disgusting. The body begged to live, even if the mind had long since given up, doing everything in its power to keep on going, no matter how difficult the road ahead may be.
