He moved on to the next trauma unit. Carleson followed.
Things seemed less chaotic here. “This-if I remember right-this is the third guy,” the driver said. “The only one who got out safely.” He addressed one of the nurses. “How’s he doing?”
“Pretty good. He’ll make it. He’ll probably be ready to be released after they oxygenate him.”
Carleson could see her relief. “He’s the father of the kid” — she indicated the third trauma room-” in there.”
Carleson and the driver moved on to the last sphere of this three-ring circus. An ant colony was filled with white-and green-clad people squeezing by each other and calling out to one another as they maneuvered.
One of the nurses who had been with the dead man was now taking in the activity. She turned to the two men standing beside her. “It’ll be a miracle if this guy makes it.” She smiled at Carleson. “That would be right up your alley, wouldn’t it, Father?”
The priest smiled and shook his head. Miracles had never been his strong suit, and never less so than lately.
As Carleson proceeded through Emergency, he marveled at how easy it was. Receiving Hospital prided itself on its security. They functioned on the theory that they expected trouble-which expectation was regularly fulfilled.
All well and good when it came to extroverted troublemakers who were loud and/or violent. At the first sign of that sort of trouble, the hospital security force as well as Detroit police assigned to the facility would smother the fracas like foam on a fire.
But what of the casual intruder?
A hospital this size had a staff so large it was virtually impossible to keep track of everyone. Anybody could stuff a stethoscope in a pocket or drape it around his or her neck, and most people-visitors and staff alike-would simply assume he or she was merely a doctor visiting patients.
Or, of more immediate moment, what of himself? What gave him license to walk wherever he wished? Only the sliver of white at the collar of his black suit.
In an institution that boasted of its tight security, anyone in clerical garb could nevertheless travel unchallenged through the general areas of the hospital, such as patients’ rooms.
Of course Carleson had the advantage of being known by many in the hospital, particularly the Emergency staff. As part of his missionary training, he had become a paramedic. This had prepared him to administer, in effect, first aid.
However, it did not suit his personality to observe restrictions when the needs of people cried out for assistance. More often than not in areas he had served, there was no doctor for uncounted miles. So Carleson elected to do whatever he could to respond to the sick.
Even when procedures clearly exceeded his training-surgery and the like-he would pray and then act. In every such instance, if he had not acted, the individual would have died anyway. The worst that could happen, then, would be death on a makeshift operating table instead of death in a hut or in a jungle. More often than not, the patient survived. That Carleson freely attributed more to prayer than to his meager skill.
He never spoke of his medical operations in the bush. It was among those thorny topics better left unmentioned.
Yet, in some extrasensory perceptional way, the medical staff of the average hospital somehow sensed the link that joined Father Carleson to them.
So it was with Receiving Hospital in Detroit. Other religious personnel might be able to enter restricted areas, but they very definitely would be limited in where they could go and what they could do. Nothing of an offensive nature. Just a firm easing of the person out of sensitive areas.
But based on that implicit camaraderie, Carleson virtually had the run of the place.
Today the hospital was doing for Carleson what he had hoped-distracting him from his personal concerns and letting him lose himself in the lives and pains of others.
All Emergency personnel who were not otherwise engaged were either inside or at the door of Trauma Room Three, where a senior resident, numerous interns, nurses, and technicians were doing everything possible to save a young man who had been overcome by toxic fumes.
Carleson continued on his unplanned tour through Emergency toward the hospital proper. He smiled as he passed a gurney on which sat a rather good-looking man engaged in a seemingly reasonable discussion concerning treatment for pain. The doctor was insisting on a prescription for Motrin. The patient was arguing, with decreasing composure, in favor of codeine.
Carleson well knew the powerful difference between the two analgesics. He also knew the young man was going to need a fix of something soon or he would slip into withdrawal symptoms.
At this point there was still an element of humor in the exchange. Before long, the black comedy would disintegrate in the face of the patient’s desperate craving for drug release.
There was nothing Carleson could do about it. No prayer or blessing, no offer of understanding and friendship could supersede the patient’s yearning for oblivion.
The young doctor was being quite resolute … although in actuality, there was little else he could do. Inevitably, what was now a fairly amicable difference of opinion would segue into a demeaning-even violent- pleading, demanding in the face of intractable refusal.
Carleson moved on.
An elderly man whose face testified to his having weathered many an intemperate northern season sat gingerly on a gurney. Loudly he gave witness that these doctors and nurses were badly underpaid. For this unsolicited testimonial he received affectionate support from the staff. At Carleson’s approach, the man generously included the priest among those insufficiently compensated. Carleson thought the man didn’t know whereof he spoke. Nonetheless, the priest gave him a bright smile and a thumbs-up.
The attendant, about to wheel the man to surgery, informed Carleson that the patient had tucked a pint of liquor in his back pocket, then absentmindedly plumped himself down on a cement curb, thus emptying the precious liquid directly into the sewer to the delight of thirsty rats. And, of course, lacerating his rump.
He certainly didn’t seem to feel any pain. Undoubtedly he had consumed some of the contents before the container smashed.
Last in the parade of trauma scenes was a gurney holding a naked man covered only with a hospital-issue sheet. Standing at the patient’s head, an intern attempted to determine what was wrong. Had he been drinking?
“A beer … maybe two.”
“C’mon … two?”
“Two! Maybe three. No more’n three.”
The intern began inserting a nasal-gastric tube through the patient’s nostril. The patient began to gag.
“Swallow, man, swallow,” the intern urged.
Suddenly, the patient began throwing up. Quickly, the intern turned the patient’s head to one side so he wouldn’t drown in his own vomit.
To Carleson, it was a repulsive sound and a nauseating odor. A nurse standing nearby obviously was similarly affected. “I’ve seen it a million times,” she said, “but it still makes me gag.”
Carleson was grateful.
A heavy, pungent odor permeated the room. “Three beers, eh? Smells more like whiskey to me,” the intern said.
At the foot of the gurney, a nurse shook her head with certainty. “Jamaica rum!”
Before leaving Emergency, Carleson glanced back. Trauma Room Three remained the center of activity. The beehive continued to swirl and an attentive audience was absorbed in the goings-on.
That’s what it was all about. The life of one person. The most sophisticated and expensive machinery available-and the most knowledgeable and dedicated personnel-bent to the purpose of saving a life.
Carleson thought again of his work in regions that were considered advanced if there was clean water available. If there was electricity, one felt that one had entered the twentieth century.
The TV series “M*A*S*H” referred to near-frontline doctors’ work as “meatball surgery.” Compared with what went on here in Receiving, the Korean front was rudimentary. But measured against Carleson’s capabilities in the jungle, “M*A*S*H” was the Mayo Clinic of the Far East
