at the emergency doors. Two paramedics rushed alongside a gurney bearing the male auto-accident victim the state troopers had dug out from the bottom of the river.
“Is this our John Doe?” Dr. Scanlon asked the paramedic as he quickly checked the chart he was handed. Shoving the clipboard into Shannon’s hands, he began inspecting the patient for internal injuries.
“One and the same, Doc,” the younger paramedic replied. “Collapsed lung. BP is 190 over 130 and coming down. Possible concussion. He’s been out since we found him.”
“Chest tube and intubate him. Seven point zero ET 2. Give him Manatol IV and hyperventilate him,” Dr. Scanlon ordered Shannon who instantly began assembling the proper dosages for the IV. “CAT scan and X rays,” Dr. Scanlon said as he passed his hands along the man’s rib cage. “Feels as if they’re all broken.”
After injecting the proper meds into the IV, Shannon prepared to intubate.
“What’s over here?” Dr. Scanlon asked as he turned toward the second gurney coming into the room.
“Again, unidentified. Richard Doe has been shot, Doc. BP is 80 over 60.”
“I want an EKG and echocardiogram,” he said as he swabbed the blood from the gunshot wound to the man’s stomach. Without glancing at the paramedic, he asked, “Any idea what all these burn marks are?”
The young man shrugged his shoulders. “The police were there nearly at the same time as we were. They think he was tortured. I heard one of ’em say it coulda been a cigar.”
Dr. Scanlon continued groping into Richard Doe’s gunshot wound without further comment. “I can’t see dick. It’s buried pretty deep. Nurse, suction.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“What else did the police tell you?” Dr. Scanlon asked the paramedic.
“That the front end of the car hit the riverbed, squishing it like an accordian. The steering wheel rammed into that one’s chest,” he said, nodding toward the other patient. “It shoulda killed him. He must be tough. We had to cut the steering wheel away in order to lift him out of the car. Only thing is, I couldn’t figure where he got the blow to his head.”
“From the same person who shot this man would be my guess,” Shannon said.
“Retractor.” Dr. Scanlon glared back at Shannon as he held out his hand to her. She properly placed the instrument handle side toward his thumb and fore-finger. Using a clamp to clear his view into the interior, Dr. Scanlon dug for the bullet. “He’s lost a lot of blood. I’ll need a cross-match.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Shannon replied. But as she cast a sidelong glance at his patient’s chalky color and at the readout on the monitors, she mumbled to herself, “Richard Doe won’t last that long.”
“He needs Methahexol, morphine and valium intravenously, if he doesn’t defib,” she said.
Just then the heart monitor went off.
“Flat line!” the paramedic shouted anxiously.
“Damn!” Dr. Scanlon blanched.
Shannon grabbed the epinephrine, filled the syringe and handed the hypodermic to the doctor while she automatically spun around and jelled the paddles.
Quickly injecting the epinephrine into the patient’s heart, the doctor took the paddles from Shannon and placed them on either side of Richard Doe’s chest.
“Clear!”
Shannon held her breath as she watched the patient’s lifeless body jerk on the gurney. “Nothing!”
“Clear!” Dr. Scanlon zapped him again.
Shannon didn’t wait for results. There was still a chance to save the other patient. “John Doe is still alive and needs to be intubated.”
With the chilling sound of the monotone heart monitor behind her, Shannon turned to the bloody, dark-haired man on the first gurney. She looked at his face. Glass from the windshield had shattered throughout his dark hair, cutting his scalp and forehead. Though his clothes were spattered with blood from hundreds of cuts, she noticed numerous hematomas.
“He’s been beaten.”
She lifted his arm, moving it forward and back while resting her hand on the man’s clavicle. Depressing her fingers into his rib cage, she rolled the pads of her fingers back and forth, pressing them into the flesh until they nearly disappeared. She counted seven broken ribs. Then she lifted his side and looked at his back.
“Kick marks. Especially around the kidneys.”
Gently pressing her fingers to his kidney area, she felt for lumps or signs of detachment. There were none.
“I’ve lost him!” Dr. Scanlon said, handing the paddles to the paramedic.
Shannon glanced at the young doctor’s ashen face, and realized there was no way he could handle another death tonight.
He stepped next to Shannon. Eyes vacant, he looked at her patient. “Good job, Riley.”
“I’ll take him up to X ray myself,” she said, glancing at the paramedic behind her as he pulled a sheet over the dead man’s face.
Police and state troopers scurried in the hallway as Shannon and the paramedics wheeled their patient out of ER.
Brushing past a holstered gun, she shivered. How ironic. Guns and lifesaving equipment in the same room.
Police officers jammed the doorway, forming a blockade against the approaching local news-station reporters who couldn’t wait to film gruesome live shots of bloody bodies for their early-morning newscasts.
Minicam lights blasted Shannon in the face. She froze. “What the—” Shielding her eyes with her hand, half covering her face, she turned away and quickly pushed the gurney toward the elevator. Accidentally, she bumped into one of the reporters.
“Hey, watch it,” he growled.
Her mouth went dry. “Sorry,” she said tensely. She avoided eye contact with the man by keeping her head down.
“Hey, is that one of them?” He turned on his camera.
Shannon felt the blood drain from her face. Though her hands were shaking and her knees quivered, she pulled the sheet over her patient’s head. “Please don’t,” she said meekly.
“I was only doing my job,” the heavyset young man said defensively.
“Me, too,” she mumbled, hurrying past him.
Grumbling, the cameraman turned away.
Shannon made it to the elevator in a flash and impatiently depressed the button twice. She could hear the barrage of questions and the distinct voice of the chief of police, Jimmy Joe Bremen, talking to Dr. Scanlon as they emerged from the ER.
“Did he say anything before he died?” Jimmy Joe asked, pushing aside his underlings.
