Emergency Medical Dad

XLVIII: past, april

JORGEN 

My parents were scheduled to show up early the next morning for visiting hours, the first time I was going to see them in months, something that rendered me sleepless for the first night back in the land of the living.

I wasn't expecting anyone to enter the room so when the door creaked open just past midnight, my heart rate monitor spiked up and I sat up a little too quickly on my stitches.

"Morning, Mr. Hadley," he said, right off the bat.

I shut off my cracked phone, "um, hi? Who are you? And you know it's midnight, right?"

"I know it's midnight, I have an in with the nurses here. You probably don't remember, I'm Scott Miller. First paramedic on the scene. I was walking my dog when I came across you and your friends," he sat down on the chair across the room from me. "So how are you?"

I glanced at the door, now shut again, halfway wondering if this was some sort of trap, "I've... been better."

"I assume as much," he nodded. "I just wanted to check in on you. It helps me come down off a scene that scares me, going to see the patients I helped as a form of closure. It fights off the burnout," he gave me a gentle smile. "And since you scared me pretty bad with what happened, I figured I'd come by and see you now that you're no longer in intensive."

I shifted back away from him on the bed, trying to prop myself up better, knowing I probably didn't look all that threatening, bone skinny, matted hair, washed out to a violent extent.

"Do you remember anything from that night?"

I shook my head.

"Do you want me to tell you what I did on the scene?"

That, I nodded at.

"Well," he sits back in his chair. "I came across you and two other boys, one bleeding from his forearm, one huddled against the wall, clearly in a shock state. The one with an arm, his name is Zak, if I remember right, was trying to wake you up."

I swallowed down a hard knot in my throat, nervous about what he was going to say but I needed to know. Nobody else wanted to tell me.

"Zak was quick with it, something about him tells me that he's been in spotty situations before."

"He has," I managed.

Scott offered me the same soft smile, the one that was setting me on edge from how much I seemed to want to trust it, "he told me what happened when I told him who I was, two young boys who he didn't recognize and a gun fired what seemed like a full round in quick succession at the three of you. He doesn't know what sparked it, he said it seemed like an odd encounter but nothing that would start violence."

I nodded for him to go on, nothing was sparking my memory.

"You took quite a lot of it as they were pointing the gun at you at first before diverting it and then running," Scott breathed out. "Your leg, from what I knew in the moment, was pretty much shattered, at least the knee, and the blood on the ground alerted me that you needed help and you needed it quickly. You severed your femoral artery. Do you know what that is?"

"I took anatomy," I didn't like the hoarse tone on my voice, making it quite hard to get out words with conviction. The femoral artery was the large artery that brings blood into your leg.

"Good," he nodded. "Not only was your knee shattered, I was certain on first glance that you'd severed that artery, meaning that your lower limb hadn't been receiving blood. Zak, bless that boy, he probably saved your life, had his hand over the wound, stopping it from bleeding. While it's an artery and you can't necessarily stop it with pressure in the same way you can with an open wound, he kept it inside your body, which probably is why you're still here."