Sing While You Can

Aftermath

When I next came to, I was lying on the road while sirens buzzed around me. I could smell blood all around and saw the demolished car lying upside down on the road. Josh lay in front of me unconscious and I couldn’t see Scott or Abi.

My head was banging and I shielded my eyes from the sun with the arm that I could move a little. My left leg throbbed in pain and was bent out from the knee cap. However, I had no feeling sensation in my right leg and I supposed that it had just went numb due to pain.The paramedics came over to me and strapped my neck in a neck brace, put me on a stretcher and carried me to an ambulance.

Before we sped off, I saw the fire brigade helping rescue someone from still inside the van which I supposed must have been Scott and Abi, I hoped they were okay.

They rushed me inside the hospital and into a cubicle. I was overwhelmed with the amount of doctors that were gathered around me; talking in their medical language.

“Do you feel any pain in your back?” One doctor asked as he shone a light into my eyes.

“Yes,” I quietly said and winced as he turned me over to my side.

He began prodding my back with his hand which made me wince.

“Okay, can you take her up for a x-ray on her leg, spine and skull.” He said and I was rushed down another set of cream painted hallways to a large x-ray room.

“Okay, Miss Pettiford I’m Nurse Blaine,” A woman came up to me and sweetly smiled.

Nurse Blaine and the rest of her team lifted me up of the bed and I screamed in pain. They quickly laid me down on the machine and calmed me down. My lower back yelled in pain and it felt as if somebody was holding a hot iron on me and pressing it deeper and deeper into my skin until it had burned through.

I waited for a few minutes for them to photograph my back and skull, but then had to carefully be moved so they could x-ray my leg, which they thought was broken and that I had dislocated my knee cap.  

After a while of lying back in my cubicle with a morphine drip inserted inside of my hand to subside the pain.

“Miss Pettiford, I’m afraid it’s not good news,” The doctor who had examined me came back into the room and I grew nervous.

“W-what’s wrong?”

“Well the x-ray has revealed that you have not broken which is very lucky considering your force of impact with the ground. However it has also revealed that you have broken and dislocated your knee-cap and will need surgery,”

“What about my back?”

“Well, your vertebrae in your lower spine have mainly all been broken or shattered due to the impact when you hit the floor,”

“But I’ll get better right?” I asked shaking.

“I’m sorry but your nerves have been severely damaged. We will need a few more scans, but we think that we may have to amputate your leg. I’m so sorry,” He said and left the room.

Tears brimmed to the edge of my eyes and I was still trying to register what he had said.

Amputation.

It sounded so horrible. I’d seen people on things like Casualty have limbs amputated and never dreamed that it would happen to me. But wait, he didn’t say definitely so I gathered myself together and tried to give myself hope; but I couldn’t stop myself thinking of the worst case scenario.

During my thinking, it turned out that someone had entered my cubicle and was silently sitting next to me clad in a hospital gown.

“Josh!” I cried and he leaned in to hug me.