“Little bit of bruising on the side of your face, it’s not bad,” she said. “Nausea?”
I grimaced. I vomited in the ambulance, but that wasn’t even the first time today. “Yeah.”
“Okay, we may need to send you up for a CT scan, the doctor will decide when he examines you. Let me get a look at your eyes.”
My stomach twisted when she mentioned the CT scan.
She shone a light in my left eye, then my right. “You look like you’re doing fine.”
That was followed by listening to my chest with a stethoscope, then checking to make sure I could move my arms and legs and if my neck or back was sore. I seemed to be okay.
“Can you sit up?”
Slowly, I did, coming upright on the gurney, bracing myself for pain. There wasn’t any.
“All right. The doctor will examine you, but it may be quite a while, they’ll want to examine more urgent cases first. Can I have your husband and sisters’ names? And in the meantime, we need to get you registered.”
I gave her the information. My stomach was twisted in knots and my head was swimming. If I didn’t get some news about Ray and the girls soon I was going to scream. I didn’t even know if they were being brought to the same hospital. For that matter ... I didn’t even know where I was. What hospital is this?
That was answered a moment later when someone from the emergency department came over with a clipboard full of paperwork for me to fill out. While I started the paperwork, my eyes kept going to a couple down the hall. They were sitting together on a gurney, leaning on each other, and the woman had blood on her forehead as they spoke with a nurse. Both of them looked panicked, exhausted. Devastated.
I looked back down at my own paperwork, but my ears kept picking up words that sent chills up my spine.
Accident.
Daniel wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.
Eight years old.
Thrown from the car.
I shuddered.
I barely started on the paperwork before I stopped, because the doors to the emergency room slid open, and my heart rate jumped through the roof.
What seemed like a small crowd of doctors, nurses and paramedics came running through the door, crowded around a gurney, they were racing down the hall toward the trauma unit. One look, and I was on my feet, suddenly lightheaded. Ray. I followed, racing down the hall behind them.
At the door to the trauma unit a nurse blocked my way. “You can’t come in here.”
“That’s my husband!” She relented, pushing me back against the wall. “You’ll need to stay right here, out of the way.” She turned back to her work.
They moved urgently, first transferring Ray to the exam bed, then hooking him to a bewildering assortment of machines and tubes. Monitors to check his heart rate and blood pressure and a hundred other things, all of them hanging on wheeled equipment.
“He’ll need a central line,” one of the doctors said. A nurse cut away his shirt, and then spread antiseptic at the base of his neck near his clavicle. Seconds later two of them inserted a long white catheter into his neck.
One of the doctors started spitting out rapid fire instructions to a nurse, and I didn’t understand any of it. But it was clear enough when one of the doctors said, “Call Doctor Peterson in neurosurgery.”
A monitor started screeching, and a nurse said, in a loud calm voice, “Asystole!”
My throat closed up with fear as they started to do CPR on Ray. I was paralyzed, unable to watch, unable to look away. Dread filled my throat, and I had to force back the need to vomit.
“Epinephrine,” one of the doctors said, again calmly, even as they were rushing around him.
I winced and looked away, and crossed my arms across my stomach, shaking. Please. Let Ray be okay.
I held my breath, trying not to watch, but I couldn’t stop myself. My eyes kept going back to his ravaged body, blood everywhere. His face was caked with blood, swollen and almost black, and his hair was thick with clotting blood. The left side of his body, from his legs up to his arm, looked askew, wrong, as if the bones had been crushed.
Please don’t let him die. Not now. Not like this. I watched, and I waited, every fiber of my being wanting to just take him in my arms.
The monitor beeped, then beeped again. The doctors and nurses paused, a visible sigh of relief passing between them. His heart was beating again. I sagged against the wall, my mind nothing but a void.
The door slid open, and then a woman was standing next to me. She was about five four, black, wearing the same hospital greens as everyone else.
“Mrs. Sherman?” she spoke quietly. “I’m Michelle Bilmes, with social work.”
I blinked at her, still shaking, and unable to answer. I couldn’t force myself to look away from the doctors and Ray.
She spoke again, “I’m the family witnessed resuscitation coordinator for the emergency unit. Perhaps you’d like to step outside with me?”
I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She gave me a weak smile. “I understand, that’s fine. You understand you need to stay next to the door and out of the way? Your husband is in very serious condition, and they’re doing everything they can for him.”
“I’ll stay out of the way. Have you heard anything about my sisters?”
“Your sister Jessica is right next door, staying with Sarah.” She frowned, then said, “Sarah’s also badly injured.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “How bad?”
“It’s too soon to say. But they’re doing everything they can.”
I nodded my head. “And Jessica’s with her?”
“Yes, ma’am. She’s doing well ... some bruises, but nothing serious. A doctor will examine her soon, too, but she rode in the ambulance with Sarah.”
My eyes darted back to Ray. They were still working, still trying to stabilize him. “I ... I lost my phone,” I said. “I need to call ... family….”
“I
