2

 

Farrell pulled the cruiser up to the emergency room and together we dragged Tom out of the back. I screamed for a gurney. A couple of doctors and a nurse crowded around us as we got Tom on the inside. I ran alongside, my hand still pushing the scarf against his wound. “He’s got a gunshot wound to the left lower flank with loss of consciousness en route from the scene. I don’t…I don’t know his BP.” My voice scratched out his condition.

“Dr. McKinney? Do you know this man?” The head of emergency room medicine, my boss, Dr. Blaine Daniels, looked at me with surprise.

I nodded and tried to blink back the tears that stung my eyes. “Yeah, Blaine, this is a friend of mine.” I leaned in and whispered. “He’s on the job.”

Blaine nodded. “We’ll get him patched up.”

We didn’t break stride until we swerved into one of the trauma rooms. Trained in trauma medicine, I shifted into assessment mode. I snapped on latex gloves. We swarmed around Tom, cut through his clothes to the wound, and took his vitals. All the while, I prayed silently that he would make it. “His pressure is tanking. Christy, spike a liter of saline. Call the blood bank and get type specific for him. He’s A-positive.” I was surprised my voice sounded so calm. My mind flashed on Tom and me as teenagers giving plasma for money.

Blaine turned to me, his face impassive, clinical. He had his finger in the bullet wound and blood oozed out along the edges.

I glanced at Tom’s ashen face and couldn’t breathe. “Blaine?” I looked at my boss.

“It’s a through and through, but he might have nicked an artery.”

I clicked through the possible dangers of a wound to that area of the body. Most complications arose when the liver, small bowel or intestines were involved. “We can red line him to the O.R. and get a laparotomy going.” I chewed on my bottom lip. The amount of Tom’s blood on my shirt along with what already soaked into the scarf on the floor, set off alarms in my head. I fought back panic.

“We need to find the bleeder or he’ll crash on the way up to surgery. Ruby, grab the portable sonogram.” Blaine glanced at the monitors over Tom’s head and furrowed his brows.

I nodded, strode through the interconnecting door to the next trauma room, and grabbed the hand-held sonogram machine. My hands shook as I fumbled with the buttons on the way back.

Blaine grabbed the Doppler wand and traced it around the area over Tom’s wound.

I watched the image on the screen without breathing. A shadow flashed into view, and my gaze snapped to Blaine. “Is that free fluid?” I asked. “That could be the artery.”

He took a second look and nodded curtly. “Call and have them prep a room.”

I snapped off the latex gloves and reached for the phone.

Sandra Walsh, the operating room coordinator, answered.

“This is Dr. McKinney, we need you to clear and prep an OR for a trauma patient.”

“We’ll have a room ready in about thirty minutes.”

I looked back at Tom’s chest, barely rising and falling, and forced down the dread in my throat. “No, Sandra, this is a red-line patient,” I explained. “He needs to be under the knife in less than ten minutes or it won’t do any good.”

She must have heard the anxiety in my voice because she didn’t answer for a few seconds.

“Sandra? Did you hear me? He needs to be up there now!”

“Uh…yes, Dr McKinney…bring him up.”

I slammed the phone down, my hands shaking, and turned back to face my boss. He was watching me with concern.

“We’re cleared. Let’s pack him up,” I said.

Blaine nodded to the other doctors and nurses in the room, but motioned for me to join him in a corner.

“Ruby, you can’t go up with him.”

I looked at him with shock. “I have privileges on the surgical ward, Blaine.”

He shook his head, leaned in and whispered. “You’re falling apart, Ruby. What will you do if he codes on the table?” His words slapped me back. I couldn’t form an answer. Blaine put his hand on my shoulder and smiled sadly.

Fear roiled in my chest, crushing me into the wall. “Please, Blaine—”

“I’ll do my best for him,” he promised.

I wiped the hot tears from my cheeks and nodded. They wheeled Tom past me. I reached out and let my hand glide along his face. Blood, tears, and fear: this all seemed so familiar, somehow.