Chasing Tornadoes - Stephen Strange

Frozen Lung

♣

Four hours, that's how long you'd been on your feet running from one patient's room to the next.

During your short coffee break, you had heard one of the interns say that the doctors sent in from Metro General had arrived and were making their rounds. You kept an ear open in the hopes you'd hear Christine's name, but you had no such luck. After the day you were having, a friendly face would be a welcoming sight.

Mike, the newest fellow at Grace Fields Memorial burst through the lounge doors and grabbed your half-finished coffee out of your hands and into his. In one shot, he downed all the contents in the styrofoam cup and sighed deeply, hand stretched out to you for a top-up once the cup was empty.

You shook your head and let out a sigh, grabbing the metal coffee pot from the hot plate, "How many hours are you running on?"

Mike stretched and nodded a thank you after his cup was refilled. You placed the pot back on the hob and poured yourself a fresh cup. He glanced down at his watch and counted backwards, "You've been here what? Three, four hours? That makes it close to six hours for me." He moaned something unintelligible into his cup as he chugged the bitter coffee.

You rubbed his shoulder and his body swayed with your motion as if he was a ragdoll, "It's not that bad. Remember the collapsed scaffolding incident last fall?"

Mike groaned into his cup again as he remembered what you spoke of, "Yeah, that was a disaster, but still nowhere near as intense as this. We had more on-call then too. Damned tornado hit at the worst time. Most of the senior staff were at the medical conference at the university in the next town over."

Mike rubbed his eyes and then stretched out of the couch. He placed his cup on the coffee table, dark liquid sloshing out over the rim.

"Hey, you're doing good," you reassured him as you finished your own cup of coffee. You glanced up at the wall clock and rotated your shoulder cuff to work a tense muscle. "I gotta get back out there. Any news on Doctor Weisz?"

"Uh-uh, still dead as a doornail on that front. I've met our relief team though. One of them is a right prick," Mike sucked in air through his teeth.

You bit your lip and cooed out in a teasing tone, "Aww, is Mikey not getting along with the other doctors?"

Mike frowned, "Just the one, actually."

"There's plenty of sand for all of us in this sandbox, you gotta learn to play nice sooner or later."

With a frown, he whipped his head in your direction, "That's not even a saying!"

You ignored his comment, "Who's got you all wound up anywa—"

"Code blue, ICU. Code blue, ICU," the PA system blared with a siren ringing at a lower pitch than the feminine voice coming from the speakers.

"Shit, that's one of mine," Mike darted out of the door and raced passed the crowds of doctors, patients, paramedics and family members cramping the halls.

You were about to follow after him when one of the interns you were supervising today -Arlene- jogged to your side and handed you a chart, "Jan sent me over, said she's got a walk-in. A regular of yours."

You read the name on the top of the chart, "Marcy? Shit... What's her condition?"

The intern fumbled, too squirrely to admit she didn't have the answer to that question.

Seeing Arlene stand on jittery legs and sweat anxiously next to you made you uneasy, her stressed energies were sapping onto you and you didn't need any more stress as it was, "Arlene, head down to Trauma Two, one of my patients is down there, check his vitals and bandages. Then head over to ICU and see if Mike needs a hand."