Chapter 3 Harry
Harry
Red.
The entire ward was coated in red.
Machines beeping, doctors shouting, patients screaming, all cut with an undercurrent of fear and the smell of death.
There was no way I could have predicted there would be a fifty-car pile-up on the Earl’s Court bridge, or that a bus would smash a lorry onto the opposite side of the dual carriageway and burst into flames with passengers still inside.
Ralph and I had been together for ten hours, and the ambulances were constantly bringing people in. Fire services were doing the best they could, but people were still trapped. Nurses had to prioritise patients and wheel them in as soon as we were done with the next.
We couldn’t stop. There was too much hanging in the balance.
My coat was stained with splashes of blood, my hands growing sweatier with every change of surgical gloves, my knees ready to give way at any moment. There was barely any time for paperwork when the patients left quicker than they arrived.
“I’m sorry, Mrs Smith. There’s nothing else we can do,” I said numbly.
I needed to switch myself off. I had to remain professional as the young woman in front of me yelled. “No. No! You’re lying. You have to – You just need to try again!”
She grabbed the lapels of my coat, letting out a choked sob.
Mascara stained her cheeks from her tears, her skin pale, the light behind her eyes fading.
She hadn’t looked at her sister for a single second as Ralph and I tried to save her.
She released me, lifting her hands and slamming her fists against my shoulders.
But the pain meant nothing.
Mr Carter was sitting on the plastic chair next to the hospital bed, watching his wife in shock.
The woman's heart flatlined five minutes ago; CPR was a failure; multiple tries with the defibrillator gave no results.
Ralph and I both knew she wouldn't make it the moment she was placed in front of us.
There was too much internal damage, and they brought her in too late.
It had taken too long for the fire department to cut her out of the car.
But with her family there, we had to try.
Our area was as private as it could be, ringed off by three flimsy white curtains as doctors and nurses raced past the opening, filtering patients as they came through.
We had put it off long enough. They had to move. We needed the room. People bled out in the corridors, and there was a chance to save them if we’d had the space.
Susie, another friend of Molly’s, appeared at the opening with two other nurses in scrubs, pushing a hospital bed with a sedated man. One nurse clutched his arm firmly, stemming the blood that was oozing around the slice of glass embedded in his leg.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the family members, “I’m going to have to ask you to make your way to a different station.” My voice was monotone, but it was all I could manage. I had to hold it together.
Another wail pierced the air around us as Mrs Smith finally looked down at her sister. “She’s not dead,” she gasped. “She can’t be dead.”
“Doctor, there must be something you can do.” Mr Carter was pale, his entire body shaking as he held his wife's hand.
Everything was numb, and I knew that deep ache that had been growing since the first shout rang out from A it made it so much harder to clear my mind for the next patient when they asked us more questions.
A fourth nurse pushed the bed into the empty space. “Male, thirty-two. Apart from the glass in his leg, the best we can see is that three ribs are shattered, but we can’t tell how bad the damage is.”
My gut wretched as I looked down at him. If he was coming to us, then there was no space left in the surgery rooms.
We each took a side of the bed and leaned over, trying to get a read on him.
I bit my lip as I looked at his skin. He was sheet-white, his lips too pale, his legs jerking as he moaned. Ten hours without proper treatment for a wound that deep was going to be a hard fight.
I pressed my fingers against his neck, looking at my watch as Ralph inspected his arm. “Breathing stable. What’s his EKG?”
But Ralph cut in before Susie could answer. “We need a scalpel kit, towels, bowls, morphine, and another nurse. Grab anyone you can.”
I worked for The Foundation because I wanted to help people, and I still did, but it wasn’t the same as looking at the face of a man and knowing that the decisions we made in the next two minutes might be the ones that saved his life.
***
Six hours later, the sun was beginning its slow ascent from the horizon. I sat on a bench in a corridor overflowing with sleeping patients in one of the many corridors that fed to A&E, staring numbly through a window that looked out onto the car park.
The sights and sounds were seared into my mind, and all I could smell was blood.
I lost twelve patients, stabilised fourteen, assisted on two major on-floor surgeries and conducted one myself.
Legs spread, back slouched, I gripped my phone, shaking as I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.
I had to keep moving. I’d given myself five minutes to eat, and I had a minute left before I needed to go back out onto the floor.
We were in a lull, but patients still needed treatment, paperwork had to be done, and I had to report to the Department Head for a serious bollocking about how I’d put the hospital at risk by assisting and performing surgeries without proper clearance.
I’d already texted Molly four times:
“Red 12.”
It was our code, a way of saying, “I’ve lost this many people and I need you.”
I just wanted her to message me, to know I wasn’t alone in this. She had seen me at my worst. She knew how much this wrecked me.
I needed her. For the first time in a year, I really needed her. Not as my fiancée or whatever she was to me now, but I needed my friend. She had worked in A&E before finding her calling in the natal ward. She knew how hard it could be.
But she still hadn’t replied, and I was getting desperate.
I didn't care about the sexting or the ‘break’ or our arguments. I needed the woman who supported me when the job became too much. Even if she hadn't when I started at The Foundation, I knew she would support me with this kind of stress.
Ralph’s partner was an EMTs who had been racing back and forth between the hospital and the crash site. They had already gone home to comfort each other, to be together the way I wanted to be with Molly.
I hit dial, lifting the phone to my ear. Even if the reception at her parents’ was terrible or her internet was out for the day, I could still leave her a message, just to talk to her at least.
I listened, pressing the phone hard against my skull, enjoying the distraction the pins and needles brought. Five rings. Seven. Ten. Then the classic long beep: “The person you have dialled is currently unavailable...”
A flash of anger whipped through me. The sheer number of times she had complained about me not reaching out, not relying on her, and vice versa, never giving her attention when she needed it.
I was so exhausted that I gave into the emotion and let myself boil.
At least I could feel something other than grief.
I was tired of all of it. What was I fighting for if I couldn’t save people when it really mattered?
I forced myself to wallow rather than let myself collapse. I could still work even if I felt like I was drowning, as long as I didn’t stop.
I was saved from stewing as a frail voice called from my left. “Doctor…” she croaked.
Looking up from the window, my thoughts receded. A trembling, withered hand stretched over the side of a hospital bed that lined the corridor, as all the main rooms were full.
I shot off a last text to Molly before shoving my phone into my pocket.
I swallowed down the part of me that needed to break down. I was resentful to Mum for a lot of things, but teaching me how to construct different masks depending on the situation wasn’t one of them.
It took so much to will myself to my feet, but I walked over to her and gave her a smile.
The longer I worked, the longer I could put off processing the horror of the day, even though I knew I would crash soon. Because each time I sat, I was met with visions of grieving families, the screams from patients, and the glassy eyes of those I couldn’t save.