“Doctor Sharma, I need you,” Dr. Patel shouted, his voice cutting through the din of the emergency bay as he gestured to the medic leaning over the patient on the gurney, hands pumping rhythmically against her chest.
“Thirty-six-year-old female, crush injuries, severed artery, massive blood loss,” the medic rattled off as I steered the gurney toward Trauma three, my eyes already scanning the damage. “Got a tourniquet on her left leg. Tried to intubate but couldn’t get her jaw open. She lost her pulse on the ride.”
“Get her on the monitor and hook up the rapid infuser,” I snapped, the command sharp enough to cut through the panic as a nurse rushed in. “I need five units of O-neg and push another round of epi.”
“Epi’s in, twice already. Still no pulse. She’s in V-fib,” the medic reported, hands pounding her chest.
“Stop compressions, checking rhythm.” I waited for the medic to step back before I leaned over the patient. The monitor screamed its flatline as I cut swiftly into her neck, performing a cricothyrotomy with one practiced motion to secure the airway. “Cordis in the right groin. Add a left femoral line, we’re going to flood her with blood,” I instructed without looking up, my hands moving on instinct as the lines went in quickly and the blood began to flow. “Charge to one-twenty.” I listened as the defibrillator powered up with a rising whine that tightened the air in the room. “Clear.” My eyes locked on the monitor, waiting for the spike that would tell me we’d won.
A quick jolt and her body arched violently.
“Nothing,” the nurse said, voice tight.
“Charging to two hundred,” I ordered. “Clear!”
Another brutal jolt. A beat.
“I’ve got a pulse!” the nurse said suddenly, leaning over the monitor. “Sinus tach—one twelve.”
A breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding escaped. “She’s back. Get a BP, keep giving her blood and get her to the OR.” I stepped away, removing my gloves.
“Yes, doctor,” the nurse replied.
I walked out into the crazy storm of more rolling gurneys, adrenaline burning through me, my heartbeat faster than my thoughts. Behind me the double doors slammed open, another wave. A child, this time, barely six or seven, her small hand clenched around a blood teddy, her white dress now stained red.
“Stomach laceration, left femur fraction,” the medic reported.
“Mommy,” she whispered, trembling.
I froze for half a second, emotion threatening to override my professionalism before I took a deep breath and knelt. “Hey, I’m Dr. Sharma. You’re safe now, okay. We’ve got you.”
Her pupils were blown, her breathing shallow. “Treatment six, peds trauma, stat!” I hailed one of the passing nurses.
“On it, doctor.”
Heart still heavy, I let them steer her away, my attention quickly pulled. Someone pressed gauze into my hand, another yelled for suction, another screamed in pain. The voices didn’t stop, nor did my pounding heart. Yet through it all, I kept moving, because stopping meant death and I was never one to give in, that quickly, not even to the Lord of Hell either.
Outside the sirens finally faded. But inside, my pulse still raced, alive, electric and powered with the kind of passion that only came from holding the line between life and death in my hands.
By midnight, the floor looked like a battlefield. Discarded gloves, crimson soaked sheets, faces streaked with exhaustion,tears and pain. Around me, monitors hummed, someone cried softly, another laughed, a manic, broken sound.
The ER lights finally dimmed as we gathered around the triage desk, bleary eyed and hollowed out yet somehow still standing.
“Status update?” I pulled off my gloves, my hands stained a faint red even after scrubbing.
Slumped against a wall, still wearing blood-splattered scrubs, Dr. Patel answered, “eight admitted to surgery. Nine to ICU. Three lost on arrival. Six discharged with minor abrasions.”
I nodded, forcing air into my lungs, the adrenaline ebbing, leaving fatigue in its place.
“Remind me why we chose this life again?” he asked.
“Because we’re insane?” Trixie replied, half smiling.
“Because someone has to,” Brandi answered, her eyes meeting mine in a knowing look.
I glanced around, my team, my chaos, my family in all but name. Every one of them had been elbow deep in blood tonight and tomorrow, they’d show up again, smiling like tonight never happened.
“We saved seventeen lives tonight,” I said softly. “That’s seventeen heartbeats that we gave a second chance to, don’t forget that.”
