Tobey walked over. “Emma’s being flown to Baton Rouge. Her husband and a squad from a level-three team are with her. Logan sent medical from our Baton Rouge urgent care.” He reached into his pocket. “We found this near the rear of the building. No sign of Kodi.” It was Kodi’s phone.
“We need to find him,” Kip cursed.
Chapter 14
Harper had only a breath to tell Kip they were sending her back to the ER. Unfortunately, illness and injury from other parts of New Orleans did not stop. “I’m sorry I left so abruptly at the Center tonight.”
“No worries, sweetheart. I’ll talk to you in the morning.” He kissed the top of her head.
* * *
The ER was a warzone.Beds lined the hallways and filled every room. Harper put her stuff away, feeling empty without her stethoscope. In her desire to get out of the women’s center, she’d left it in her locker.
As she and three other nurses hit the nurse’s station, she couldn’t help but notice the exhaustion on the face of Rushpa Haldar, the nurse administrator. “Thank you for coming in. I contacted the agency. Between the impending sale and the fire, no one would notice to stop me. We were down six nurses and a doc before this happened. As soon as I get the rooms covered as best as I can, I’ll take the wall patients.”
Harper looked at her, feeling a little more respect because she was stepping up too. “Where do you want me?”
“Gunshot victim in Trauma 2. We are waiting on an OR. He’s the third one tonight. Hopefully, he lives long enough to make it there. The agency is sending a surgeon and an attending,” Rushpa said.
Harper chewed her cheek. “Got it.”
Walking into Trauma 2, she found a graduate nurse at the patient’s side. The new nurse was almost as pale as the patient. “Hi, I’m Harper. Where’s he at?” Her eyes scanned the monitors and the IVs.
The new nurse gave her little information. “I feel horrible; it’s my first week. They pulled me from Med-Surg 1. I don’t even have a preceptor.”
“Well, you do now. Do we have a name?” Harper smiled.
“Um…” the nurse said.
“What’s your name?” Harper grabbed a yellow isolation gown and gloves.
“I’m Marta,” the nurse replied.
“Okay, get a gown and gloves on. What time did he get here?” Harper walked close to the young man on the bed.
“I’ve been here for twenty minutes, and he was here before me.”
“Did one of the docs see him?” Harper’s pulse beat hard in her temples. SHIT. “Marta, help me get his clothes off.” She cut open his blood-spattered shirt and found a small hole below his right nipple, another over where his appendix would be located.
“Hey, I’m Harper.” She cut his shirt free, then double-checked the IV and monitor. The monitor had not been cleared from a previous patient. The minute she cycled it, the screens turned red, but there were no alarms. “Marta, go out there, find a doctor, and don’t come back without one.”
She opened his IV wide as she listened to his chest using a disposable stethoscope from the drawer in the room. “Oh,” she gulped when his eyes flitted open.
“Can’t catch my breath.” His hand flailed.
“What’s your name?” Harper switched him over to an oxygen mask from the nasal cannula.
“Kodi…. Kodi Bush. You…have… to help… me. Num-ber… in… my… shoe.”
“Don’t try to talk.” Harper placed a consoling hand on his shoulder.
Marta had not returned. With the crowd in the halls and the nurse’s station in chaos, she opened the door and, at the top of her lungs, yelled, “I need a doctor in Trauma 2!”
Seeing a tall bald man weaving his way toward her, she checked the computer, looking for labs, and gasped. She’d seen the ER this busy before, but she never saw the neglect of a serious trauma patient like Kodi. The IV, after close inspection, turned out to be the one started in the ambulance and was restricting the flow.
“Okay, Kodi, you need to hang on for me.” Without orders, Harper drew a trauma panel, type and cross for six units of blood, started a second IV and hung a unit of O-negative blood. Then she finished undressing him, inserted a foley and dipped a urine. Next, she drew a blood gas.
Kodi drifted into unconsciousness. None of anything she did got a reaction. Security procedures were lax, and she was grateful as she typed in the orders for the tests she drew as well as for a chest X-ray, all stat.
