Page 2 of Fighting For You

Some of my classmates in nursing school used to ask me why I wanted the ER. A few of them ended up in labor and delivery, the NICU, floors where the patients were cute and small, and the outcomes were almost always good. They thought I was out of my mind.

I understood why they thought it was strange. I was the person who read my horoscope every morning and checked my birth chart when Mercury went into retrograde. I needed the universe to have a plan. Nothing about the ER looked like it had one.

But it did. There are protocols for everything. Steps to follow, roles to fill, decisions I've trained for. And the ending is always one of two things: you save them or you don't.

And between all the random, unpredictable things that life can throw at you, there is something deeply grounding about being the person who gets to tip that balance. About knowing that your hands, your focus, your fifteen minutes of holding pressure on a stranger's neck might be the reason he goes home to his family.

Nothing else in my life has ever been that clear.

The two paramedics were finishing their paperwork at the desk when I came back out to the floor.

I looked at their necks. Their skin was clean and unmarked.

The one with the helmet caught me looking and gave me a nod. I nodded back.

I turned toward the terminal to start my trauma flow sheet.

Outside, tires screeched as a sedan braked hard at the bay doors. The back door opened. Two guys pulled a kid out by his arms and set him on the concrete. The door shut and the car was off the ramp before security got his radio up.

Gracelyn was already shouting. "Gurney! Now!"

The kid was crumpled on the pavement. He looked about seventeen, maybe younger. Both hands clamped around his upper thigh. His jeans were soaked with blood.

I dropped to my knees on the concrete and drove both hands into the soft groove of his inner thigh where the artery runs close to the surface. He screamed.

"I know. I'm sorry. I have to hold this."

Gracelyn anchored his head as we lifted him onto the gurney.

Inside Trauma Two, the kid lost it. He was thrashing, swinging, kicking with his good leg, trying to shove every hand away.

Gracelyn stepped directly into his line of sight.

"Look at me. Stop kicking or you are going to bleed out right here. What is your name?"

His whole body was locked tight. His breath came in short pulls, but he stopped fighting.

I cut through the blood-soaked denim from the knee up with shears and peeled the fabric away.

"Can you tell me your name?" Gracelyn asked again.

"Go to hell!" he spat.

"Fine. You're John Doe."

Dr. Harlan came through the bay doors. His eyes went to my hands, to the blood pulsing through my fingers.

"Tourniquet."

Gracelyn put the strap in my hands. I looped it high on his groin and cranked the plastic rod. One turn. Two. The dark pulsing slowed. Three turns, and it stopped. The kid gave one last ragged shriek and went limp against the bed.

I locked the windlass in place and finally lifted my hands. They were slick to my forearms.

Harlan pressed the cold ultrasound probe against the kid's hip. He watched the screen. "Two units O-neg on the rapid infuser."

Gracelyn hooked up the blood bag. I spiked the IV lines.

Within two minutes, the frantic shouting died down. The only sound left in Trauma Two was the rhythmic chime of the heart monitor and the thud of the rapid infuser.