Page 22 of Resuscitation
The boy grunted, barely able to rip his eyes away from the game on his cellphone, and submerged his bare foot in the water. He winced and knifed a look at Sara, holding her responsible for his discomfort.
Sara returned a thin smile. Yet another satisfied customer. The bean counters at corporate HQ would be so happy.
Evan’s mom, wrapped in a puffer coat and sporting a pulled-down woolen hat bearing a team insignia, sat on a chair in the examination room, talking to someone on her cell.
Sara exhaled silently. Only a matter of time before this place, her clinic, followed the rest of the hospital into oblivion. She thought about the local people and all the patients who relied on this facility—the elderly, the working poor, those without transport.
How were they going to get to Potsdam when they needed urgent care? The system had failed them, leaving the most vulnerable to fend for themselves. She had to keep the clinic running as long as possible for the sake of the community that depended on it. She wouldn’t abandon her patients, not without a fight.
“Ingrown toenail. No, he won’t be able to play, I don’t think. He can barely walk, it hurts so bad. Hang on…” The mom looked at Sara. “Doctor, how’s it looking? Will he be able to play hockey tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow, but give it a few days and he’ll be fine,” Sara answered.
The mom shrugged and returned to her conversation just as Angie, the ward clerk, came rushing down the hallway. Sara stepped out of the treatment room to meet her.
“There’s a police car coming up the road, lights and sirens,” Angie said.
Sara frowned. “Here? They should definitely not be coming here. They know that.”
“I know,” Angie said. “Sorry.” She fled back to the waiting area.
Sara walked briskly down the hall and entered the EMS dispatch center inside the ambulance bay. The tiny, glass-walled office overlooked the ambulance entrance with a second door out to the large garage that held the EMS vehicles and a resupply area.
Wayne, the dispatcher, a man in his fifties, swung around on his gamer chair. His U-shaped desk had a stack of takeout coffee mugs with crumpled-up candy wrappers scattered around several computer monitors, a radio with a headset, and a multi-line phone.
“Wayne, did the cops radio in? What’s the emergency? Why are they coming here?”
He shrugged. “Just got off with Alyssa. Said there was some kind of incident and they saw a cop car headed our way, running lights and siren. Getting ready to call county dispatch?—”
Just as Wayne picked up his radio mic, the reflection of flashing red and blue lights in the office window grew stronger. Sara leaned forward to hit the button to raise the garage door, the sheriff’s SUV barely clearing it as it roared into the ambulance bay and screeched to a halt. Its doors flew open, and five figures clad in SWAT gear climbed out.
One shouted, “Hey! We need a doctor! Someone’s been shot.”
“Wayne, grab the gurney from the trauma bay and send everyone this way,” Sara ordered. The older man stared at her, mouth agape. “Do it, now!”
Once he rushed through the door leading into the ER—minorcare clinic, she couldn’t help the mental correction, especially as it meant she was seriously understaffed and under-equipped to handle any kind of gunshot wound—Sara strode into the bay to meet her patient. “I’m Dr. Porter. What happened?”
The men parted, gesturing for her to look into the rear seat. She noted that they all held rifles at the ready, as if anticipating an attack. She’d done a stint as trauma doc for the SWAT team in Toledo where she’d trained. These men felt hardened, like them. Still, something felt off…
She ignored the itch to focus on the armed men behind her and approached her patient. Mid-twenties, pale, diaphoretic, obvious penetrating abdominal trauma with significant blood loss. Responded minimally to commands, maintaining airway, peripheral pulses thready and rapid. Ignoring the blood on her hands from assessing him, she crawled out of the passenger compartment.
The driver stood in her way, cradling his rifle, his posture taut, challenging her. “He’s going to be okay, right? You have to save him.”
She met his gaze, not liking his tone of command. “This isn’t an ER any more. We’re barely a minor care clinic. And he needs a Level One trauma center. The closest is Syracuse. With the storm, there’s no way the helicopter will be flying. We’ll stabilize him as best we?—”
He shook his head, leaned into her space. “Not ‘we,’ Doc.You.You will stabilize him, fix him up, do whatever he needs done. Here. Now.”
Sara wanted to shove him out of her way—she needed to get to work if her patient had any chance. Before she could move, Wayne came rushing in with the gurney, followed by Nick, her physician assistant, and Kelly, her nurse. The only other staff on the night shift were the desk clerk, an x-ray tech, and a security guard patrolling somewhere.
The cop turned, raised his rifle, pointing it at Wayne, who stopped short, raised his hands, the gurney rolling across the concrete floor. Two of the other cops caught it before it hit the SUV.
Sara wondered why they didn’t move to load their injured comrade onto it—and realized that was what had been bothering her: SWAT team members and most patrol officers were trained in basic trauma care, even had trauma kits with the tools to stop excessive blood loss.
Yet all these guys had done was to use someone’s bandana as a pressure dressing. These guys weren’t cops. Her mouth went dry as the adrenaline rush of a dealing with a GSW was overridden by the sheer, sudden terror that she was all that stood between life and death for everyone in the building.
The leader seemed to sense her distress. “Just so we’re clear,” he said, his rifle still aimed at Wayne. “You’re gonna have multiple traumas on your hands if you don’t save my brother.”
She lowered her gaze as if submitting to his authority. “No need for that, officer,” she said calmly. “We might not have much more than the basics here, but we—Iwill do everything in my power to save his life.”
