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MAE
‘Fourteen-year-old male, stab wound to the lower abdomen,’ the paramedic informed us as he wheeled the gurney into the ER bay where the team was waiting, alerted by the trauma call from the ambulance en route. An emergency physician, trauma surgeon, nurses, radiographers; we were all poised and alert, ready to hear the debriefing. The paramedic who spoke looked tired and bone-weary, as we all tended to do towards the end of a long shift. His much younger partner moved faster, clearly keen to offload the patient onto us as quickly as possible so he could leave. He’d done what he could. It was our problem now. They brought the bitter Chicago cold in with them, on their clothes, in their hair. I could smell the snow.
‘Jesus,’ Matt muttered, hanging a bag of blood in preparation. ‘So young. Look at the lashes on him. He’s like fucking Bambi.’
‘A group of uninvited teens gatecrashed a birthday party,’ the paramedic continued. ‘There are more patients incoming but this kid’s in the worst shape. Went down twice on us on the way here. Managed to get him back both times but he’s lost a lot of blood.’
The lost blood was everywhere it shouldn’t be, soaked through the boy’s shirt, down his legs, all over the gurney.
‘On my count,’ I ordered, briefly taking control. ‘One, two, three.’
Together, we lifted the boy over to the bed, more blood soaking through the white sheet immediately, spreading in a way that would have been beautiful if it wasn’t someone’s literal life bleeding out of them.
‘OK,’ Dr. Alice Salisbury said, taking over. ‘Let’s do a top-to-toe, make sure there are no other injuries. Matt, we’re going to need more blood. Mae, get me a line in.’
Her words were a formality; I was already doing it.
‘Left arm’s in,’ I told her, less than a minute later.
‘Great. Get me one in the right too.’
‘On it.’
The monitor behind me sounded an alarm.
‘Oxygen stats are dropping,’ Rory warned. ‘Can barely find a pulse. He’s crashing again.’
‘Do we have a name?’ Alice asked in a clipped voice.
‘Theo Miller,’ the paramedic answered. ‘Parents are on the way. It was his brother’s birthday party.’
‘This is going to traumatize his brother for life,’ Matt said. ‘He’ll never celebrate a birthday again. Not to mention it’s Christmas in, like, a month.’
‘Not helpful, Matt,’ Alice barked, shooting him a look before focusing again on the job at hand. ‘Come on, Theo. Keep breathing. You’ve made it this far. I need eyes on the wound, people.’
‘It’s here,’ I told her, as I finished cutting away the boy’s shirt, exposing his chest. Pale and concave with youth. Every rib outlined through skin slick with blood. So much of it.
‘I need suction,’ Alice said. Matt obliged while her fingers investigated the wound, hunting for the source of the bleeding, ready to clamp.
‘His blood pressure is diving,’ Rory warned. ‘We’re losing him.’
‘Start compressions,’ Devin, trauma specialist, ordered.
Rory climbed on the stool and started giving the boy chest compressions. Around me, the room blurred as a team of people fought to save a life.
I squeezed the Ambu bag, breathing for the boy, willing him to live. Matt was right, his eyelashes were long and curled. Beautiful. His skin, dewy with youth, so pale. A light dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks.
‘He’s bleeding out,’ someone called.
The monitor flatlined.
‘Come on, Theo,’ I whispered, squeezing the bag while he was probed, clamped, compressed, shocked, injected. ‘Come on.’
‘Still no pulse.’
I tuned out the voices and various noises of machines and procedures. Focused on his face only, blurred out the rest. Did my job. Willed him to live.
