The Man In Bed Three...

TMIBT...4

Stepping out of theatre, I sighed heavily. It had been a long day. I pulled my operating cap off and made my way to the sinks to wash up. Just as before, with Catherine's husband, I found myself staring aimlessly through the glass at the O.T. The other surgeons were busy closing up the man's wound and cleaning the surrounding area. I'd never seen so much shrapnel in a wound before, until today. It took two hours to remove it all. We'd guessed he must have yanked whatever it was that had caused the inguries out of his own shoulder. But it had seemed unlikely with the size of the object needed to make that hole. But that didn't matter now. He was stable for the while.

After cleaning up and dressing back into my coat, I'd headed upstairs to the ward in which I'd left Catherine with John. On arriving, I found that Catherine had left to go back to the maternaty ward and John was sleeping soundly. I glanced lesurally at my watch. 9.45. Okay. All's quiet. Get yourself some sleep before something happens. I was "on call" tonight. That meant I ran shift all through the night. I pulled myself into the on call room and made my way to my favourite spot. Top-bunk, bed in the far left of the room. The on call room was quiet tonight. It didn't sound like anyone else was there. Getting up the ladder was the hard bit, and as soon as I was under the covers, I was asleep, begging some greater being that I would not be woken by loud staff or my pager.

Sleeping nearly all through the night without one disturbance is thought to be the best luck one can have when on call. I was awoken at 7.17 in the morning to the loud beep of my pager. Sitting up quickly, I checked the small dial. ICU. Okay, let's go. Sliding quickly out from the covers, I dropped down the ladder, slid on my Crocs and made it quickly out of the bedroom. I ran to the stairwell and straight up to the next floor. I sped along the corridor and through the main door, squirting some hand-gel from the dispenser and rubbing it in quickly. I could suddenly hear someone calling out, roaring in agony. I followed the sound and a horrible smell of singed flesh came to my senses. Good god, what on earth is happening?! A nurse suddenly ran out of a near by room. My eyes widened in fear and I came to a sudden halt. She was pale. Unnaturally pale. She was distraught, screaming, crying, in hysterics. And her face... Spanning her face was a throbbing, burning red mark. A hand print. I could see it clearly. The red was so striking against her near white skin. The shape, the long spindly fingers. But it covered her whole face! Shaped around her nose even. It was as if someone had a place searing hot mould to her face. "DOCTOR!" She ran to me, screaming. "IT HURTS!" My arms instinctively went round her. I held her close. Her body was quivering. She looked up at me and suddenly her eyes rolled back. She went completely limp.

"What?" I gently lent her down, resting her on the floor. I brought my head to her mouth, turned my ear to her mouth and looked down her chest. Ten seconds. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10... Not one breath. No chest movement. I'm trembling now. I'm terrified. I press for an emergency page and start chest compressions on the nurse. Someone's at my side in a few minutes. They take over. I sit down shakily. By the time a gurney's been brought to her, she's already been declared.

The worst thing, no one knew what had happened to her. The postmortum had revealed the cause of death. Cardiac Arrest following massive blood loss. How? That was altogether more horrifying. We didn't know. Six pints of blood just vanished from her system. The burn on her face? No one knows that either. There's nothing to tell us how it happened. It was just that one nurse and a ward full of comatose ICU patients. The only information I could give to my manager was that she had come running to me from a room.

"And what room was that Miss Hartford?"

"Room 504."

"And who is in that room?"

I hold up my chart shakily and look at the names. "Mr. Lawrence; bed four, Mr. Cleeves; bed two, Mr. Forsen; bed one and..." John Doe. "No name sir. We found no personal effects on him. He was one of the crash victims."

"So, bed three I presume?"

I nod. "Yes sir, the man in bed three..."