The ambulance pulled out of the way as the second ambulance backed into place.
This time, when they opened the doors, there was a police officer on the gurney, one EMT bagging, the second one on compressions.
One of the doctors stepped forward to listen to the history. Looked at the gunshot wound. Then, he pulled back the officer’s eyelid and touched his pupil. With no reflex, he called the time of death.
The first responders were exhausted, and that call hit them hard.
After signaling the driver to pull out, they walked the gurney inside to transfer the body and retrieve their equipment.
Sommer wondered if the man in the elevator heading for surgery had anything to do with the officer’s death and if that was why the policeman was only a step away.
A pickup pulled up, its bed filled with people, and slow-rolled to a stop. Sommer could imagine that some kind person drove by, gathered as many fleeing wounded as he could, and followed the ambulance. The doctor signaled for wheelchairs as he accepted two patients with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds. The others weren’t at risk of life or limb, so he asked the driver to take them to another hospital that was already prepping to take overflow. Luckily, he really was a good guy and didn’t give the doctor a hassle; he just waited patiently as the two triaged patients were assisted out, then he drove away calmly.
And so it went.
Patient after patient.
Doctors would run in, look through the chart, list the diagnostics to be performed, and stitch the wound, direct them to MRI, order blood and antibiotics.
If the patient was stable, they were sent to the waiting room because they could sit with their bruises and splinted, broken limbs while the staff needed the space for others to be resuscitated, triaged, and moved to the next step.
Among the wounded bodies, the police were everywhere.
Sommer had to politely usher officers out of the path of staff running toward a code.
She got that these patients were in police custody. But those patients were double-handcuffed to their beds. Where were they going that the officers needed to hover?
Frankly, they were obstacles to the staff doing their job.
Sometimes she was glad they were standing right there when she was treating a particularly angry patient.
Anger really was the emotion that boiled in the emergency department. In the mix were people who were in the dispute, one group with the other, the ones who had started the fight, the ones who shot the bullets, the innocent ones caught on the scene
Typically, when possible, the police would keep one group in one hospital and another group in another so there wouldn’t be this cross-hall screaming from bed to bed.
The scene was too big; the number of wounded didn’t lend itself to that kind of diplomacy.
It was hard to work on a patient when they were clattering around with their wrists in handcuffs, not to say Sommer wasn’t grateful for the safety it afforded her.
It was still frightening.
Add in the normal full moon full house of heart attacks, strokes, and household mishaps, and it was non-stop.
The pace had been too quick to worry about hunger or thirst or needing a pee break.
When Sommer graduated from nursing school and applied to work in emergency medicine, she knew that this hospital, in a major metropolitan area, wasn’t just possible, but probable.
She wanted to be there for the people in their darkest moments; she wanted to give them support and steadiness, but after hours and hours, Sommer found her hands shaking, and she’d almost made a terrible mistake.
With her adrenaline pumping from the near miss with the medications, Sommer took herself out of the game to reset.
Peeling off her gloves and dumping them in the nearest biohazard bin, Sommer went by the head nurse's station. “I’m taking a minute.”
In the women’s locker room, she rested her hands on the cool, slick surface of the ceramic sink and looked in the mirror.
Her hair was wild from sweat.
Blood smudged her face.
