Second Chances ~ l.h.

Chapter 17

***Luke's POV***

"How is she? Is she going to be ok? When can I see her?" I frantically started asking the doctor questions.

"She is going to survive." He said and we all sighed with relief.

"Oh thank god!" Katey and Gill sighed, now crying tears of joy.

"However. . .” the doctor continued interrupting our relief. “There was too much nerve, muscle and tissue damage, we had no choice but to amputate her lower right leg."

"But you said she was going to be ok?" Ashton asked anger ring through his voice.

"No I said she was going to servive, you just didn't let me finish." He corrected him. “Her shin was broken in several places and at the ankle. Her shin and foot were dislocated from the knee socket; she wouldn’t have been able to use that leg again. We didn’t have a choice.”

I thought I was going to throw up at the sound of that. All my emotions sank to the bottom of my stomach; I thought Katey was going to burst into tears again. We all kind of stood there with blank expressions not sure how to take the news. We were all too shocked to move or say anything so the doctor continued.

“She will have to get a prosthetic leg and until she gets it she'll have to use crutches. She is going to be in the hospital until she recovers and have to start going to physical therapy."  He explained to us.

“Ok that's not a problem, anything else?" My mum asked.

"We were also able to remove a tooth from her wounds, we gave it to a professional who is here to examine her leg to determine what shark attacked her and why.”

“Well what type of shark was it?” Gill demanded.

“A Great White.” The doctor replied. “Now he is going to have to do a full investigation to determine how and why this happened, so you’ll have to give statements and answer questions.” He explained to Katey and Gill, since they witnessed the whole thing.

“Isn’t living through it once enough?” Katey cried. “Now I have to relive it again.”

“I’m sorry, but you have to remain positive and cheerful. It may be hard for you, but this is ten times harder for Katharine. Not many people survive these kinds of attacks that’s what you have to understand. She is very lucky, that shark could have done more damage and she could have very easily bled to death. She has a second chance at life that not many people get.” the doctor explained to us.

"We understand, now if it's not too much it ask we would not like this to get out to the public so if you could keep it low key for now until we're ready, it would be greatly appreciated." My mum politely asked him.

"Sure, no problem." He agreed.

"When can we see her?" I asked, hopeful it would be soon.

"Well she's in ICU right now and sleeping from the morphine we gave her because she was in so much pain. Right now we're only allowing immediate family in at the moment." He told us and my hopes sank.

"Her family lives in the US; she's going to school here and is living with us." My mum told him.