Emergency Room Romance

It Shouldn't Take This

*Blair*

I was enjoying my lunch, chatting casually with Wilson who had popped in as I was halfway through my salad. It was kind of nice to be able to forget about the tense situation with Robert for a short while and just talk about every day things that didn’t centre around death or saving lives.

My pager beeped and I looked at it in confusion. The EMT’s were bringing in a patient; a victim of a car collision and I had been requested to attend. I jumped up and shoved the last forkful of lettuce in my mouth before racing from the cafeteria and down the corridors, back to the ER, pausing only to grab a fresh pair of gloves from a crash cart a pair of interns were moving to the ICU.

I burst into the ER at the same time that the EMT’s entered. I ran to the cart, guiding them down the corridor towards the most advanced unit the small ER carried as the taller EMT filled me in on her condition.

”…car collision…heart rate…head injury…unconscious since…” I let my eyes fall on the patient and I faltered for a second. The patient was a small girl, Emily’s age. I recognised her instantly; she was the daughter of one of the women who had been in the anti-natal classes with me and our daughters attended the same day care facility and pre-school; her name was Felicity. I shook the personal connection away and turned around just in time to see Robert appear in the doorway.

“Need an extra pair of hands?” He asked as I assembled the cart near the bed and cut through the thin pink shirt covering the small girl’s chest. This was the time when all of our personal issues were pushed aside and I didn’t even stop to think about the fact that he was talking to me again. It suddenly and simply wasn’t important.

“Yeah.” I replayed what the EMT’s had told me over in my head and moved to hook the small girl up to the required machines, allowing Robert to assist me in connecting the ventilator to her.

“What’s her condition?”

“Critical. We need to find out the extent of her injuries but we need to get her stabilised for now. All the EMT’s were able to diagnose was a broken leg.” I checked the clock on the wall and then adjusted the settings on the heart monitor.

“She’s going into hypotension, Blair.” The machines began to screech and I kicked to life once more, my eyes flickering over the monitors as my hands moved over her ribs, my stethoscope following immediately behind.

“Pneumothorax.” I said quickly, dropping the stethoscope around my neck and pulling a sterilised scalpel from the cart, moving quickly to make the incision in her chest whilst Robert prepared the tube to insert. “Go.” I told him, side stepping away to allow him access to set up the treatment.

The stats didn’t balance out though and I grabbed my pen torch and gently lifted the lids of her eyes, noting the dilated pupils and lack of response in the pale blue innocent eyes.

“Blair, there’s blood coming down the tube.” I looked at the tube and sure enough there was a thin trickle of crimson blood trickling down the clear piping.

I moved any material away from the body and looked over the small child, noting the speckles of purple appearing that weren’t formed by a contusion. “Hemothorax.” I said, stepping back and trying to think how I could fix this in time.

“Blair, she’s too small for another chest tube.” Robert said quietly, still monitoring the falling stats.

“But that one is too high up for Hemothorax.” He nodded and quietly moved, holding the tube in place whilst I made another, lower incision, holding my hand out for an intern to hand me another chest tube. “Okay, stitch the first one up.” I said, giving the cue for Robert to carefully remove it from her body as I eased the new one in.