Page 8 of All I Need (Hearts of the South)
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Nothing about getting multiple lacerations stitched up intimidated the teenager in exam room three. His mother, rattled by his accidental fall through a glass door, hovered on the verge of tears, while the young man watched in rapt attention as Savannah irrigated each cut.
“I can’t feel any of that.” A wide grin creased his face. “That is so cool.”
“Good.” She smiled at the glee in his just-deepening voice. His enthusiasm almost made up for the fact that the wounds hadn’t been irrigated before she came in to put in the stitches. She lifted his arm onto the table and adjusted a sterile drape over it, then moved the plastic tub of now-bloody water to the side table. “That means you’re ready for me to do my best work.”
She lifted the pre-threaded suture needle, and his already antsy mother turned a paler shade of green. Savannah angled the light over his arm and started the first in a neat line of thirteen tiny sutures.
She knew it was crazy, but she loved suturing. Not the fact that someone was hurting and needed stitches, but the rhythmic regularity of drawing the thread, tying it off, starting another stitch. The process provided a brief lull in the oft-times craziness of the ER.
“Excuse me.” A brief knock on the open door drew her attention from the task. She glanced up at Layla Price, the PA on duty.
“Yes?” Eyes on the needle and thread again, she tied off suture number six and began seven. She squinted at the rough edges of the boy’s skin. She wanted this to heal neatly, with minimal scarring to the area along his elbow.
“Exam one is back from radiology.”
“Thanks. I’ll be finished here in a few minutes.”
“Did you irrigate that yourself?” Layla’s disdain drew Savannah’s attention. A scowl pulled the PA’s brows together.
“I did.” Savannah didn’t bother to add she’d be having a long talk with the charge nurse and her supervisor at Southwest Georgia Medical either. She and Layla had already discussed the lapses by an understaffed and overworked nursing crew. If SGM wanted a top-notch ER here, they had to staff it with top-notch, not bare minimum, numbers.
“I can finish that if you need me to.”
“That’s okay.” Savannah grinned at her teenage patient. “I’m showing our future military medic here how sutures should be done.”
Minutes later, she stripped off her gloves and dropped them in the disposal unit. After answering his mom’s questions about wound care and securing a promise that her patient would be careful running in the house from now on, Savannah headed for exam one.
Layla, scribbling discharge instructions on a chart, glanced up and tilted her head toward the waiting area. “The sheriff’s investigator is here on that, too.”
“Thanks.” Savannah suppressed a shudder. Exam one was pushing all of her buttons today. With a quick review of the radiology notes, she carefully schooled her expression into cool professionalism before tapping once on the door. A low male voice bade her come in, and she pushed the heavy wooden slab inward. She put on a smile for the paramedic sitting on the end of the exam bed. “Good news. Radiology says nothing is broken.”
“I could have told them that.” A wide grin creased his handsome face. He gestured at the ankle in question. Dirt and grass stained his uniform, but other than a couple of nasty scratches on his hands, he looked none the worse for wear. “It’s a sprain.”
“Well, you’re going to stay off of it for a couple of days. With that swelling? Maybe three.”
“I could wear an elastic bandage and work—”
“You could wear an elastic bandage, stay off that foot, keep it elevated and occasionally iced down. Let’s make that three days for sure.” Savannah slashed the instructions across the bottom of his chart. “Maybe take some NSAIDs for the inflammation.”
“Three days?”
“You want it to heal so you can keep climbing in and out of the back of that bus?” She pinned him with a look. “Three days, then follow up with your primary physician.”
He grimaced, but accepted the discharge sheet.
She tilted her head toward the door. “The sheriff’s investigator is here if you’re ready to talk to him.”
“Yeah.” He held his phone aloft. “He’s already been texting me, wondering how long this would take.”
Savannah resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Men. “Okay, I’ll send him back, but seriously, take care of that ankle.”
He sketched a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
Smartass. The good medics always were.
The memory of another smartass medic clenched her throat. God, she needed a minute. Outside the room, she dropped off the chart and stopped by the intake desk. “Hey, Lorraine, buzz the sheriff’s department guys in, would you?”
