Running on Insulin

Chapter 3

I followed the paramedics from the ambulance bay into the hospital. I was stopped by a nurse as they rolled her into the emergency department.

"Family only," she said.

"I'm, I'm her uncle," I lied.

"Oh. Okay then," she looked at me skeptically.

I followed the paramedics into the ER and found where Samantha had been brought. Doctors and nurses surrounded her as the paramedics rattled off her vitals and what they'd done so far.

The doctors tried some of the same methods to try to wake her up that the paramedics had done. I heard them order a glucose drip, and a bunch of tests.

"Is she going to be okay?" I asked the remaining nurse who was affixing a bracelet to Samantha's wrist. With the tests and treatments ordered, and a heart monitor and IV hooked up, there was less action around Samantha.

"She should be. It depends on how long she was unconscious before you found her," she said.

"Oh. She was conscious when I found her. She passed out in my arms," I said.

"Oh. Then yeah. She should be fine. She'll probably wake up in a few hours. She's going to have a wicked headache probably, but she should be okay otherwise. She got a shot of concentrated glucose in the field and she has a glucose drip now. We'll keep monitoring her blood sugar. Do you know how much insulin she takes? Types? She doesn't have a pump."

"I don't know anything. She just showed up in my backyard and passed out."

"You're not family?" She asked.

"No. I'm the guy who's backyard she broke in to. But I didn't want her to wake up and be alone and scared. I'm not sure she even really saw me when I went out to see who set off my motion lights, but if she did, then at least she won't feel alone?"

"I won't say anything," the nurse smiled.

"My wife is supposed to have been right behind us. Can you see if maybe she's outside? Her name is Jenna. She's got blonde hair,"

"I'll go look. If she's out there, I'll bring her back. I expect she's the 'aunt'?" The nurse winked.

I smiled.

"Yeah,"

I found a chair and pulled it into the curtained cubicle where Samantha lay, still unconscious.

Jenna came in a couple of minutes later.

"Hello, Aunt Jenna," I said.

"Is that how you got back here? By saying we're her aunt and uncle?"

I shrugged, and offered a sheepish smile.

"What do we you know?" Jenna asked, sitting on my lap.

"Not much. They have her on a sugar drip, and they'll keep checking her blood sugar. She'll probably be out for a few hours."

"We're going to stay here until she wakes up, aren't we?"

"Well, I am. You can go home if you want," I said. "I don't want her to wake up alone, and I didn't tell you this before because we had a strange, unconscious teenager in our living room, but when I went outside and found her, there was someone in the woods screaming that they were going to beat the shit out of her. I don't want her alone if that person shows up."

"What do you mean someone was screaming they're going to beat the shit out of her?"

"Exactly that. Someone, probably on the other side of the fence line, was screaming that they were going to beat the shit out of her. I assume it was her they meant."

Just then, two police officers came up to us.

"Are you Mr. Tyler Joseph?" The taller one asked.

"I am. What's this about?"

"We're following up on your 911 call this evening. I'm Officer Jim Davis. This is my partner Officer Natalie Brown," he introduced them to us.

"Hi. This is my wife, Jenna," I said.

"Pleased to meet you. Could we get a statement from you about what happened at your property this evening?"

"Well, Jenna noticed the motion lights in our back yard were on and asked me to check. I thought I was just the rain, but she insisted because it had been raining for a while and the rain hadn't set off the lights before. When I went outside, I saw Samantha in our backyard, just standing in the light."

"Who's Samantha?" Officer Davis asked.

"Uh, the unconscious teenager I called 911 about?"

"Right. We weren't given her name. And she's no relation to you?"

"No. She just showed up in our yard. When I went out to confront her, I heard someone yelling that they were going to beat the shit out of her. Well, honestly, I'm assuming that was directed at her. It came from around our fence line, and it's not like anyone else was close by."

"Would you be able to identify the gender of the voice?"

"It sounded male. And very angry," I said.

"Did Samantha hear that, too?"

"I think so. She kept looking back towards the fence line as I was approaching her."

"What happened when you got near her?" Officer Brown asked.

"She fainted. I caught her and brought her inside. My wife was going to try to put dry clothes on her, but we noticed her breathing was pretty shallow and Jenna noticed the MedicAlert bracelet saying she's diabetic. Since we aren't and have no way to test her sugar, we called 911,"

"You may have saved her life," Officer Brown said. "In more ways than one."

"How so?" I asked.

"We can't divulge that, unfortunately," she said.

Just then Samantha started to stir. I looked over and took her hand as she opened her eyes.

"Hey there," I said in a calm voice. "You're okay. You passed out in my backyard and we called an ambulance. We'll discuss why you were in my backyard later, but we stayed so you wouldn't wake up alone."

Samantha just looked at me. She didn't say anything.

"Can you hear me?" I asked. Maybe she was deaf, too.

She nodded. Okay. Not deaf.

There was a commotion at the front doors to the ER.

"Where's my kid?! She's got to be here! Samantha! Samantha! Where are you?" It was the same voice I heard at the fence line. I looked over at Samantha. Her eyes were wide, her face a mask of terror.

"Is that the person who said they were going to beat the shit out of you?" I asked her. She nodded.

"Officers, you saw. That's the person who threatened her. Since she was on my property, I can't in good conscience let anything happen to her."

Samantha looked over at the officers. Her face fell even deeper into a look of pure terror.

"Samantha, it's okay," Officer Brown said. "Your neighbors called 911 when your dad chased you out of your house. They heard his threats, too. And since we have a witness, we can finally do something. I know you've felt like no one is on your side. Abuse is so hard to catch."

"Where the fuck is my kid?!" The voice was louder, and angrier. "Get me my kid before I beat the shit out of you!"

"Oh, goody," Officer Davis smiled. "We now have a charge of uttering threats. Samantha, you're safe now. I promise."