Page 73 of 7 Miles High
We’re sprinting through the door to Emergency and Nia is still crying.
“My mother is in here, Dorothy Dobson, she was in a car accident.”
She spits it out in one stream of consciousness. There’s no time to waste. The nurse behind the glass looks up with a blank expression. She must be used to crying, wounded, scared people having the worst day of their lives.
“Give your I.D. to that guard over there, and he’ll give you a badge to wear.”
This angers Nia, who is desperate to see her mother.
“My mother might be dying! I don’t have time to do that! Fuck me!”
This doesn’t play well with the nurse who’s obviously seen too much.
“Well, you better get over it because you’re not going back there until you have the proper identification.”
Nia knows when she’s beaten and moves across the room to the guard who with all the time in the world takes her license and makes a copy. He seals it off and places it in a lanyard. After what seems like an inordinate amount of time he hands it over.
Without another word she goes to the door of the back rooms and stands. Another nurse rushes by her and accesses entry with her card.
As the door swings slowly open and Nia follows the nurse through, I see something I won’t soon forget. The glass cubicle directly across from the door has nurses and doctors surrounding a blood-soaked patient. Paddles are being applied to her chest. It’s Nia’s mother.
