Running Away From a Past Life

Chapter 7

"Oh God." Josh said as he braked and pulled off the road. Olivia had her hand over her mouth. My mind was only on getting to Ian. I jumped out of the car and started running toward the road block.

"ASHLEY!!!" Olivia jumped out of the passenger seat and ran after me. The officer stopped me and at about the same time Olivia caught up with me and hugged me just as I broke down crying.

"No, Olivia, noo....Ian..."

"It's ok the ambulance is leaving, we're going to follow it to the hospital, c'mon."

We ran back to the car and Josh quickly turned the car around as the ambulance went wailing by. We followed it at top speeds all the way to the nearest hospital. Josh stopped and let Olivia and I out so he could go park somewhere. The EMT's ran to the back of the ambulance and pulled out a stretcher. Deep down I knew they were going to pull Ian out of it but I couldn't help but hope that it wasn't really him. 

I was right, of course, they pulled Ian's limp body out and put the wheels down on the stretcher and started running him into the ER.

The nurse stopped us at the door, "I'm sorry, you cannot go in right now. You may sit in the waiting room over there." She pointed. I walked, as if in a trance, over to the seating area and plopped down in a chair. Josh ran in and saw me sitting in the chair with my face buried in my hands and Olivia's standing off to the side silently crying. He gasped, probably thinking the worst. Olivia walked over to him and quietly explained that we don't know anything yet. 

"Shit, his parents are still on vacation." Josh realized. 

"Do you have their number?" Olivia asked sounding really worried. 

"Yeah." He started dialing. "Hi, this is Josh, I'm sorry I have to call you with this, but Ian's in the hospital.......we're not really sure yet......car accident.....ok we'll be here, see you in a couple hours....yes, I'll call you if we find out anything." He hung up. "They're on their way to the airport right now and will be here in a couple hours." Olivia hugged him and he held her tight. I want Ian, no...I need him right now. He has to be ok. Oh my God why!? My mind was going crazy. 

 Several nurses came sprinting down the hallway and into the room. I jumped up and ran over by the door. As the nurses ran in and the door was open I could hear a lot of beeping. Before the door fully closed I saw the doctor grabbing the defibrillator and yelling "clear!" I froze. Not a single thought in my mind. Then the horrible thought came.

"Ian's dead." I breathed. 

"What!?" Olivia and Josh both said, standing right next to me. 

"They had a crash cart and the doctor was using a defibrillator on him...that means he's in cardiac arrest..." I leaned against the wall and sank down, crouched with my hands once again covering my face. Several minutes later a couple of the nurses walked out, looking overly stressed.

"Is he ok!?!?" I practically jumped the nurse. 

"Are you family?" The nurse asked.

Before I could respond Olivia jumped in and said, "We're his siblings, our parents are out of town and on their way." Thank God Olivia said that, I didn't even think about the fact that they probably wouldn't tell us much without being family.

"Ok. He is in bad shape, I'm sorry to say, but he is stable," she quickly added, "he went into cardiac arrest but we were able to resuscitate him. He has some broken bones and is bruised up pretty badly. What we are concerned about is his head, he suffered some pretty bad head injury. He's lucky to be alive in the first place. I wish I could say more but for the time being we really don't know until he wakes up. We're going to move him to ICU as soon as the doctors are done examining for other injuries."