It didn’t take long for a paramedic crew to arrive with a gurney and carry board. They went to work on him.
“You want to tell me what is going on in this place?” she asked Chapman.
“Ms. Cross. Calm down. Come down to my office.” He made a gesture to Byrd and several techs assisted the medics in lifting Jack off the bed and carrying him out. Seth looked on in horror, unable to believe what he’d just witnessed. The ECT room was often used, but at all times patients were monitored by staff and no one was left alone with the machine on.
He watched as Dr. Chapman led Nurse Cross down the corridor and around a corner. He stepped out to find Porter and Jenkins looking on. Jenkins had this grin on his face as if he knew something or found pleasure in the situation.
“You know about this?” Seth asked. “As one of the security guards saw you guys dragging him in from the courtyard.”
Jenkins got up in his face. “We brought him in because he was found to have cocaine on him,” he said taking a baggie out of his pocket and dangling it. “He was locked in his room while we went and spoke with Chapman.”
“Then how did he get out?”
Porter threw up his hands and shrugged.
Seth nodded. “Well I’ll be sure to mark this down.”
Jenkins got closer. “You do that. You do that,” he said repeating himself.
He took Seth’s wrist and turned it and dropped the bag into his hand. “And while you’re at it, be sure to hand that over to Chapman. Sorry, I forgot.”
“You forgot?”
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”
He gave Seth a menacing look before they strolled off towards the courtyard, leaving him with questions. He’d worked with both of them for several months and heard stories of their abuse but had yet to witness it. Two years ago, Jenkins nearly lost his job after accusations were brought against him that he had beaten up a patient. When asked if it was true he said it was false and dropped the names of a few patients who he believed had committed it. Of course it never went any further than that. Seth looked at the bag of white powder in his hand, he squeezed it like a hacky sack before heading off to turn it over to Dr. Chapman for disposal.
Chapman looked unconcerned as he poured a cup of coffee and offered Hanna one.
“You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, Ms. Cross.”
She stabbed her finger at the floor feeling her temperature rise. In all her years in the ER she’d seen mistakes made, and even witnessed the bullying of patients, but had never seen such negligence. “A few minutes too late and Mr. Winchester may have died. God knows, if he will even come back from this! You want to tell me how that happens?”
“Watch the accusing tone, Ms. Cross. Remember who you are speaking with.” He took a seat with his coffee and leaned back. “We will get to the bottom of it but I can’t have you out there losing your cool. It’s unprofessional and we hired you because you came with good recommendations. Understand that I spoke on your behalf, went to bat for you when the director of the hospital wanted to hire someone else. Don’t make me regret that decision.”
She knew he was bullshitting and pulling a power move. Chapman had nothing to do with her hire. She had dealt with human resources, not him.
Cross pointed to the door. “Let’s not make this about me. Someone is responsible for strapping him to that bed.”
“Any patient could be responsible.”
“They were all in the yard.”
“Ms. Cross, you’ll discover very quickly around here that patients are very resourceful. I like to think of them like kids. You know they’re up to mischief and sometimes you catch them but sometimes you don’t.” He shrugged as if it was no big thing. “Patients show up with black eyes, broken limbs, cuts and are even found unconscious — it’s the nature of running an establishment that suffers from government cutbacks.”
“Well surely there are cameras. Someone would have seen this.”
“Cameras?” He laughed. “That would be a luxury. Do you know how long we have been advocating for them to install cameras in this place?” He pointed to the door. “Go. Go take a look outside. You’ll find there are none. But understand this, it’s not because we don’t want them. I have bent over backwards and had this discussion with the powers that be for the better part of the last three years. Now we are making progress but it’s slow. In the meantime we do the best we can.”
“And by best you mean, allow staff to hook up patients and shock them to within an inch of their life?”
“Careful,” he said pointing at her and setting his cup down. “I won’t warn you again.”
She took a deep breath and tried to reel in her anger that was getting the better of her. It was one thing to witness a fight, another to see a breakdown in order. Order was all they had in a place like this. Lose that and it was a free-for-all.
Hanna placed a hand on her hip and then brought it up to her face and ran it over her jaw. “Someone brought him in. He was outside. I saw him in the courtyard before the alarm went off.”
“That’s right. I asked for him to be brought in.”
Her brow furrowed. “You?”
“It was brought to my attention that our friend Mr. Winchester has been distributing contraband. I had two of our guys bring him in and perform a strip search as his room had turned up nothing.”
There was a knock at the door and both of them looked through the window. Chapman beckoned in Seth. He stepped in with a bag
