Chapter 2
Chapter two
Helen
“Dr. Chu. Dr. Chu. EMS is calling.” Lindsey’s voice is tight, a high tone of excitement mixed with anxiety. She’s new to the Emergency Room, fresh out of nursing school. She still gets keyed up when the more acute traumas like this one come in.
I drag my attention from the lab results I was just reviewing. Except they aren’t a patient’s; they’re my mom’s. “What is it?”
“The ambulance is bringing one in. A drowning.”
A drowning.
Those words used to send a spike of adrenaline through me. Back when the flashing lights of an incoming ambulance had sparked my heart to beat faster, my palms to sweat. I used to love the challenge of it, knowing I was about to fight death on his own turf and maybe win.
Those days are long gone.
After seven years of working in the ER, first as a resident and now as an attending physician, what once was electrifying has now become routine.
“Helen,” Dr. Giardini calls from across the nurses’ station. His oversized glasses give him an owlish appearance, his brown eyes magnified behind thick lenses. “Can you take that one? I’m not great with drownings.”
Of course he’d ask. He has a way of being mysteriously “busy” whenever the more-complicated cases come in.
It shouldn’t bother me. I actually prefer these challenging patients, but when the staff lovingly call him “Dr. G” and laugh at all his awful dad jokes while giving me stiff hellos and wide berths in the hallways, it gets hard not to feel just a little bitter.
That’s fine. I tell myself I don’t care. Most days, I believe it.
“No problem.” I blow strands of straight black hair off my forehead and shove my stethoscope into the bulging pocket of my white lab coat. My sneakers squeak against the polished floor as I head toward the doors, where they’re already unloading the patient.
The stretcher rolls in, its wheels caked with wet sand, leaving a damp trail across the floor. I stand aside and watch as they wheel the patient into Trauma Bay Two.
Larry, the EMT, gives me a half-wave, averting his gaze as he moves past.
Great.
He asked me out a month ago. I said no, and it’s been awkward ever since. I let out a quiet, resigned sigh and trail after him and his partner as they lock the stretcher’s wheels into place.
That done, Larry turns to me with his hands full of paperwork. “Dr. Chu,” he says stiffly, his tone too formal for someone I’ve worked with for the past three years.
“What’s the story with this one?”
“Drowning.” Larry barely looks at me.
I move closer but can’t make the patient out from where I stand by his feet. Just a wisp of light brown hair and too pale skin peeks out from the thin sheet covering him. Even from here I can see that he isn’t shivering, which worries me because usually in the ER,
Shivering = good.
Not shivering = bad.
It means his energy stores are depleted.
“Who goes surfing in the middle of the night?” Larry snorts with disgust and lightly kicks the metal frame of the stretcher. “Another idiot thinking he’s invincible.”
My spine stiffens. This, right here, is why I said no when Larry asked me out. “He almost died.”
“Yeah, and whose fault is that?” He shakes his head, scoffing. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? Having to pull people out of the fire they deliberately threw themselves into?”
I bite down on my first instinct, the defensive one.
Because I get it, at least part of it. EMTs are the first ones on the scene.
They see the worst of it—the blood, the panic, the hysterical families.
By the time patients get to me, they’ve been cleaned off, stabilized, and wrapped in white sheets. It makes sense that Larry’s jaded.
Still. It’s a choice, to let the work get to you, strip you down until there’s no compassion left.
My hands curl into fists at my sides. “It’s our job. Literally what we’re paid to do,” I remind him, sharper than I mean to. “Can we please just stick to the facts?”
Color rises on Larry’s neck as his eyes dart away. The silence that follows makes my stomach pinch.
Crap.
Even if he deserved it, I was too harsh. I didn’t mean to embarrass him. Sometimes I feel like everyone but me got a set of instructions on how to interact with each other. Like it was the “learn social cues” day in school, but I was home sick.
“Sorry,” I mumble, not sure if it’s too late for my apology to count.
Larry either doesn’t hear me or ignores my words. I’m guessing the latter. Voice flat, he intones, “Mid-twenties white male found washed up on shore by tourists. He was shallow breathing and bradycardic when we arrived. Now steady heart rate.”
“Hypothermia. The Pacific Ocean definitely got him.” Having grown up in California and now having worked here for the past ten months, I’ve seen quite a few cases like this.
Surfers who stayed out too long without their wetsuits or people who fell off boats, and it took a while for the Coast Guard to rescue them.
I pull latex gloves from a rectangular box on the wall.
They’re mediums, too big for my hands, which Larry, to my annoyance, once called dainty.
The hospital is always out of size small.
I make my way toward the head of the stretcher, asking questions as I go. “Any sign of drugs? Alcohol?”
Larry chews his lower lip while he flips through sheets of paper. “We gave him Narcan just in case, but no response.”
“So, no opioids.” I pull my stethoscope out and unwind it.
“Smells like a brewery, though.” Larry casts a judgmental eye toward the man. “Also, I think his leg’s broken. Must’ve gotten hit by his surfboard, or maybe he had one of those Velcro ankle ties that keep you connected to the board and it snapped the bone when he fell.”
Lindsey rushes into the room with her clipboard pressed to her chest like a shield. Wide-eyed, she asks, “What can I do, Dr. Chu?”
“We need to raise this guy’s body temperature slowly. Can you get me some warm blankets, please?”
“You got it.” Without stopping, she makes a U-turn and strides back out.
I stick the rubber-tipped earpieces of my stethoscope into my ears, and the world muffles instantly.
As I stand at the head of the bed, I glance back at Larry, who’s rattling off vitals from the ambulance run.
I pull back the sheet, revealing bare skin.
Per protocol, Larry and his partner cut off the man’s clothing en route.
The patient’s chest rises and falls with short, shallow breaths.
I place the stethoscope over his heart. Normally, I’d take the time to blow on it, warm it up, but this man is already cold and clammy. He’s not going to know the difference.
I close my eyes to concentrate and listen.
Thump…thump…thump.
His heartbeat is a reassuring sound, strong and steady, like the tide rolling in and out.
Judging from his toned and muscled chest, this guy’s in good shape.
Lucky for him. That probably helped him survive the inky pull of the water.
Leaning close, I listen to his lungs, which have a distinctive crackle and wheeze.
He’s inhaled water. It’ll take a few days for that to clear.
I’m already compiling a list of tests and treatments in my head. It’s all muscle memory by now, the protocols, the order sets. I don’t even need to think to know the next steps.
I lift my gaze to the patient’s face, and my stomach drops, a sickening free fall. A million thoughts crash through my mind, but only one sticks.
I know this man.
I had sex with him.