Falling in love in the ER

1. The first meeting

Grace
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"Grace I need you help in triage there are 20 people in the waiting room and we're drowning!"

"Don't worry Colie I got it! I'll start grabbing vitals and weights."

"God you're a saint you know that!"

I laughed at her comment as she ran off to her patients room. I've been working in the Emergency Room for 2 years now and we have very good days and very bad days. Today is a very bad day, we've had 3 traumas and it's only been 5 hours into my 12 hour shift.

I walk out of the break room and set my water on the desk at the nurses station and walk over to the triage bay, I grab a pair of patient sticker and walk out to the waiting room and call the name on the stickers.

"Nicholas?"

"Over here"

I hear a thick British accent say, I look to where the voice came from and see a tall and very handsome man with a towel covering a part of his forehead that was obviously bleeding, a friend of his standing next to him has his hand in the air so I can see them in the crowd.

I smile and say

"Hi! My name is Grace, I'm going to be your technician for the evening, if you follow me I'm going to grab your weight and some vitals on you!"

He smiles and responds

"Perfect thank you so much!"

I turn around and bring him back into the ER, I turn the standing scale on and he hops on the scale, i write down his weight in kilograms and bring him into the triage room and shut the door.

"Alright so I'm just going to grab some vitals from you quick, just a blood pressure, temperature and pulse"

I slip the blood pressure cuff on his arm and it's not hard to deny he is very fit and good looking, he has light brown eyes, blonde hair that is styled perfectly. After I slip the blood pressure cuff on I turn and look at him and he's looking at me right in the eyes, I can feel my checks heating up so I quickly turn away and continue with my work.

"So Nicholas what brings you into us today?" I ask

"Well my friend Taylor and I were working and I turned around quickly and hit my head on a piece of low hanging metal"

He speaks with his thick English accent that makes a woman's knees buckle.

"Okay and what would you rate you pain on a scale of 0-10" I ask trying to stay on topic instead of focusing how good looking he is reminding myself of not just my hospitals policy but my own personal policy of not dating patients.

"I'd say about a 6" he states

I nod and say "okay sounds good your vitals look great so I'm going to let the nurse take over okay, I'll come check on you once you're in a room!"

I smile at him and click my pen shut after charting the vitals and writing down what I was told for the nurse, I look at him and he looks like he wants to say something but doesn't. So before I embarrass myself I open the door and walk out when I suddenly hear over the intercom

"CODE BLUE ED ROOM 24 CODE BLUE ED ROOM 24 CODE BLUE ED ROOM 24"

I yell "SHIT" and run from the triage room to room 24 which is right across the hall from the triage room Nick was sitting in.

"Grace switch out with me!"

My fellow tech James says so I quickly run around to him and switch with him starting my compressions and feeling the patients ribs breaking as I'm doing so, which I know mentally means I'm doing them right but I still feel horrible. As I'm doing compressions I feel like eyes are on my so as they're doing breaths I look over and see Nick watching, I quickly yell

"Can we close that damn curtain and give this woman some privacy!?"

They do as I say as I see Colie walk into the triage room and I can finally focus on my coding patient.

45 minutes later
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"Time of death 21:30"

Dr. Martin announced

I moved from the patients side and rip my gloves off, I walk to the med room and slide to the ground, that was the 2nd patient I lost today and I wasn't handling it well and broke down crying, Colie walked in after me and sat next to me.

"Hey I know it's not easy but it's the job right, we save hundreds of lives a day but we can't save everyone"

I just lean into her and sob, Colie has been my best friend since I started, she was a semester ahead of me in school so she has been my rock at work and school.

"Th-that's th-the second per-person today Colie! Wh-what am I do-doing wr-WRONG!?"

I said between sobs, she grabbed me and hugged me tight saying,

"You did nothing wrong hon, it's how things work down here, you win some and you lose some but you'll never lose more than you win"

I sighed and wiped away my tears and said

"You're right."

She smiled at me and said

"Come on Gracie I'm always right, now come on get off the floor and let's go! Oh by the way that guy in the triage room wouldn't stop asking about you, saying how beautiful you were"

I blushed and told her

"Okay but you know the hospital policy as well as mine, no patient worker romances, it makes it messy!"

She sighed and said "I know I know I know, but you have to take a leap of faith sometimes G otherwise you'll die alone!"

We laughed and left the med room, I took a deep breath and walked into another patients room, continuing my shift as if nothing happened.