Chapter 60

It’s 1730, and I’m caught up on patient care. Not only this, but so are my coworkers. It’s been a quiet dayshift, but none of us say this out loud, because that’s the fastest way to jinx your shift. I helped Craig transfer his last patient to pediatrics, and he’s left early. The remaining three of us sit at our pods and finish charting. We have an hour left before night shift arrives.

Of course, it was too good to last. The phone rings and Sue picks up the phone. I can tell by what I overhear we’re getting an admission. A trauma. A motor vehicle accident.

It’s a fifteen year-old boy, intubated by paramedics at the scene. He was the unbelted passenger of the truck his buddy was driving. They crossed a freeway barrier, and hit an oncoming car head-on. Our patient flew at least thirty feet before hitting pavement. He coded on the scene. There was a fatality in the other vehicle. The driver of the fifteen year-old’s vehicle survived without significant injury.

We call respiratory, and a ventilator is set up in the room. I pull out kits for arterial and central line placement. Neurology calls to have us prepare for an ICP monitoring device insertion.

It’s all hands on deck as the paramedics roll the boy into the PICU. He is strapped onto a back board, and wearing a neck collar. I step up to the gurney as we prepare to transfer the young man onto the hospital bed. He’s unconscious, and there’s blood spattered on his face. His face: I take a closer look, and I recognize his face! Oh my god; it’s Liz’s son, Nathan.