Deep Trauma

As she made her way back toward the hospital from the west side of campus, a LifeFlight helicopter whirled overhead. Incoming, she acknowledged as she picked up her pace. She knew she had about two and a half minutes before whatever case was in the airship hit the doors of the ER. Her pager had been buzzing ever since she’d left the morgue, and now, she felt the need to run.

“Trauma bay five, Riley. It’s you and me again, sister,” Sonya yelled, running past her down the ER’s main hallway, pushing an incubator. “Obstetrics is on the way, and trauma surgery too. A double whammy—multisystem injuries, pregnant pedestrian versus auto with an anticipated crash C-section.”

“Oh, Jesus, OB scares the hell out of me,” Riley said, running alongside her. “How long until obstetrics gets here?”

“On the way! Hopefully you’re spared.” The nurse shoved a plastic apron toward Riley with her free hand.

“ Always got my back—Sonya, you’re the best,” Riley said as she pulled on the apron mid-stride.

The flight crew and the ER staff who had met them on the rooftop heliport swept into trauma bay five amid the chaos of swarming personnel and incoming surgical supplies. Two IV bags were swinging from a single pole at the foot of the stretcher. The blue disposable sheet over the form of a pregnant woman was soaked with blood. A middle-aged paramedic, sweating profusely, was frantically ventilating the intubated woman with a bag device at a rate too fast to be effective. As Riley approached to make an initial assessment of the patient’s injuries, pushing aside the crowd of personnel surrounding the stretcher, she cautioned the paramedic.

“Slow it down a little, please, Sam,” she said, fixing her eyes on his silver-plated name tag. “We need to drop that ventilation rate to better facilitate oxygen transfer. Take a deep breath for yourself and try to relax. We’ve got this.”

But that was before Riley laid eyes on the patient.

It wasn’t the obvious femur fractures or the massive head trauma that caught her eye, nor was it the strip of duct tape over the girl’s eyes. It was the pink suede Prada pump on the left foot, now crimson with blood, that knocked the breath right out of Riley’s lungs.