Finally Home

71. Tyler

"Samantha?!" I exclaimed as the stretcher passed through. I could see their patient now. It was Samantha. Her lips, under the oxygen mask, were blue. She was pale. Her hair looked frozen. Wet, anyway. They had her under blankets but she was so pale. She looked like an ice princess.

I followed the paramedics.

"That's my daughter!" I said as the paramedics and the security guard pushed me back from the door to the emergency room. "That's my daughter! I need to be with her! Samantha!"

"Let the doctors take a look and get her assessed," the security guard said.  I tried to argue, to fight my way through. All that accomplished was getting the police to come back and sit me down in the waiting area rather forcibly.

"Sir, let the doctors assess your daughter. I'm sure they'll let you back in a little while."

I sat in the chair and crossed my arms. I felt like a petulant child, but my daughter needed me. And I needed her.

I pulled out my phone and called Jenna.

"Tyler!" She said as she answered the phone. "Have you found her? She hasn't come home."

"She's here," I said quietly, trying to keep my composure. "Someone must have found her or seen her or something and called the paramedics. She's frozen. She looks frozen. Her lips were blue."

I was not doing a good job keeping my composure as tears rolled down my face.

"Rosie's awake. We're coming," Jenna said. I didn't have anything to say to counter that, and she'd hung up anyway. I called Josh next.

"Ty, we haven't found her anywhere. I'm really sorry. But it's getting really bad out here and I don't know where else to look."

"It's okay," I said, my voice quivering. "Paramedics just brought her in. She's frozen. She looks frozen."

"We're coming. You're at Nationwide, right?"

"Yeah," I said, the tears flowing freely.

"Okay. Debby and I are going to drop a car at home and then we're coming."

I stifled a sob. 

I hung up and got up and started pacing. The security guard was watching me. I assumed because he thought I'd try to make a run for it into the ER to get to Samantha. Don't think I didn't think about it, but I wouldn't do that to Sam.

I kept pacing, waiting for someone to come tell me something.

Half an hour passed with nothing. Jenna came running in with Rosie on her hip.

"Tyler! Where's Sam?" She asked frantically.

"They haven't come out to tell me anything yet. She's still back there and they won't let me back."

"SaSa, Daddy," Rosie said, reaching for me.

"She's seeing the doctor just now," I said, taking my toddler in my arms.

Rosie frowned.

"SaSa cold," she said.

I looked at Jenna. What exactly was it between our girls?

Josh and Debby came running in about ten minutes later.

"Where's Sam? Is she okay? What's happening?"

Jenna went over to the nurse's desk to ask for information. Rosie had her head on my shoulder and her thumb in her mouth. Josh was tickling her leg.

"Unca Josh?" She said.

"Yeah, RosieRo?"

"SaSa cold."

"Is she?" He asked.

I felt Rosie nod on my shoulder.

"SaSa cold and tired. SaSa sleeping."

"I bet. It's cold outside and it's so early in the morning and Samantha had to get up super early didn't she?"

Rosie nodded.

Jenna came back.

"The nurse is going to go check and see if we can go see Sam now."

We all sat in the not-so-comfortable waiting room chairs and, well, waited.

Ten minutes passed and a doctor came out.

"Mr. and Mrs. Joseph?" He asked. I stood up, still holding Rosie, whose head perked up when the doctor came out.

"Yes. That's us," Jenna said.

"Okay. Hi. I'm Dr. Harwood. So, Samantha was apparently found unconscious in a bus shelter on Fairwood at Mooberry. She was curled up on the bench in a bus shelter. She had no coat, hat or gloves. In a snowstorm," he said, sitting across from us in the waiting room.

"I know," I said. "I brought her here at three thirty for stitches in her right arm. After she got them, she took off. I don't know why."

"I see," the doctor said, with some skepticism.

"I know it sounds, odd. And not great. Samantha's had a rough go of things. We adopted her when she was 13. She had an abusive upbringing. Her birth father was Stanley Deitz."

"The lawyer who kidnapped his own kid a couple of years ago?"

"Well, she was our kid by then, but yeah."

"I see," the doctor said.

"Samantha has some unhealthy coping mechanisms when she perceives things might not work out, or if she feels threatened somehow. The only thing I can think of right now is that a few days ago, she came home from a trip to visit friends of ours. She had a seizure at the airport and the doctor she saw at the hospital started a DCS investigation. Her and her sister were in care for a couple of days. She may have worried the doctor she saw tonight was going to open an investigation again and have her taken away."

"I've seen some of her records here. I see she's had a troubling past. Where might she have been going?"

"My guess is she was trying to walk home," I said.

The doctor nodded.

"Well, she's hypothermic and unconscious. We're moving her up to the ICU soon. She's got some frostbite on her fingers and ears. It's not too bad and we'll keep an eye on it. We have her under a warming blanket, and are giving her warmed I.V. fluids. I'm not sure if the frostbite has damaged any tissues under the surface but we'll keep an eye on those. If there is damage, we might have to consider amputation. But we need to warm her up first."

"Amputation of what?" Jenna asked.

"We may have to amputate some fingers, maybe the tips of her ears. But it's not certain. It's not 100%. We'll do some assessments when she wakes up."

Jenna, Josh, Debby and I looked at each other. How much more could Samantha take?