What Happened After

Chapter 24

Chapter 24.

          On June 10th, 2012, at 9:43 in the evening, the phone rang at the nurses’ station of West River Memorial Hospital. Sheila, the on-call nurse, picked up the phone and greeted the caller as usual. “West River Memorial, this is Sheila—how may I help you?”

          The voice on the other end of the line was frantic. “This is John Peters, Ambulance 223—619 should be just behind me—there’s been an accident up near Miller Creek…a near head-on collision between a semi and an SUV…two casualties already, both teenagers. Clear two OR’s for me, do you hear me? We’ve got the other two and we’re coming in.”

          The nurse gave an affirmative and hung up the phone quickly, turning to a resident near her. “Get the trauma team ready out front, we’ve got two ambulances coming in within the next few minutes and we need as many people as we can get to help—it sounded bad.”

          Within seconds, the surgical floor was buzzing with doctors and nurses and assistants rushing around, grabbing beds and preparing operating rooms. Faint sounds of sirens were now noticeable, and the team rushed outside.

          John, the EMT on duty, practically leapt out of the back end of the ambulance the second the back latch was undone. The hospital staff made quick work of pulling the gurney out carefully—carrying a young, pretty, blonde girl, currently unconscious—and looked to John for details. “Broken arm,” he explained, out of breath. “I would check for head injuries as well—she’s passed out and woken up a couple times since we got her in here, and I’m worried it could be a concussion.”

          “Roger that,” one of the doctors said, turning and pushing the gurney in through the hospital’s double doors. By this time, the second ambulance had pulled into the driveway, and the first one moved slightly out of the way to make more room. The back doors on the ambulance sprang open, and three more EMTs jumped out, pulling a second gurney.

          Lying on top of this one was a boy—unconscious as well. His lower half was wrapped in a sheet and the trauma team left outside dreaded what they would find underneath it. One of the EMTs seemed to sense their panic and explained the situation. “This one’s got a suspected snapped femur—nothing too horrible, but we're assuming a couple broken ribs as well. He was unconscious at the scene, and hasn’t woken up since we found him. Most likely chest trauma, I’d guess, judging from the state of the front half of his car.”

          With a nod, the remaining doctors wheeled the boy, too, through the front doors of the hospital, and the EMTs relaxed against the second ambulance.

          Inside, the doctors shouted out orders to the nurses while wheeling the individual gurneys in. “We need an OR! Get an OR ready just in case!”

          One nurse from somewhere near the front entrance shouted back, “ORs 2 and 5 are open, sir! We’ll keep them open until you tell us otherwise.”

          The teenagers were then wheeled into their respective rooms on the emergency floor—the girl in room 6 and the boy in room 14. Neither one was currently awake, but the doctors suspected they would be soon, and ordered pain meds to be delivered to the rooms.

          One doctor, working on the boy, relented, “He’s gonna hate that leg the second he wakes up,” referring to the boy’s snapped thigh bone. The nurses got both the boy and the girl hooked up to IVs in no time and the doctors examined both of their heads, as well as the boy’s ribs. He had indeed cracked a few, and his forehead was severely bruised due to the force of him hitting his head during the moment of impact, but compared to his leg, the recovery would be nothing. The doctors took him into surgery immediately to see what they could do about it. Now, it was just a waiting game.