Chapter Seventeen #2
Then she realized the man had staggered in holding his intestines bunched in his hands.
How did he get to the hospital?
Sommer grabbed a wheelchair that rested against the wall and raced forward, triggering the automatic door so she could look out and find someone who could give her some details.
As she scooted forward from behind him, he fell heavily into the chair as if he could go that far and no farther.
“What’s your name, sir?” Sommer asked, moving to the front and stooping so they were eye-to-eye.
“Coyote.”
“Coyote, what happened to you?” Sommer stood to push him toward the head nurse’s station, manned by Marsha, to signal that she needed to be directed to an open space where she could provide medical support.
Marsha looked down to assess the situation, then checked her clipboard and held up a finger. She ran from area to area, pulling back curtains, sliding them into place again. “Here,” she called.
When Sommer arrived, she positioned Coyote against the wall, hoping he wouldn’t pass out and fall to the ground.
Marsha whipped the soiled bedsheets from the mattress, swiping the surface with disinfectant cleaner, bringing the level of sanitization up to standard.
Between Sommer and Marsha, they made the bed, then lowered it to its lowest setting, before helping Cayote ease out of the chair and onto the bed.
Someone called for Marsha. They caught eyes. As she passed by Sommer, she said, “I’ll let Dr. Peters know. We need to stabilize him and get him packaged for transport.”
They’d already been informed surgery was full.
They certainly couldn’t leave this man with an open abdomen cradling his intestines.
There was no team to help her; everyone was spread thin.
In her head, she felt time ticking.
First things first. Since the blood had coagulated and he was breathing without effort, Sommer started with the exposed bowel. Like a dangling eyeball, his intestines needed to be kept moist.
Sommer dampened gauze bandaging with saline solution, but as she went to apply the dressing, she realized Coyote was holding things together. She’d have to come up with a solution, but for right now, “We’re going to have to work as partners on this, Coyote.”
He lifted one hand, then the other, as she did her best to think through her strategy. Step one: find the damage. “Is this your blood all over you like this?”
“Doubtful,” Coyote said.
He was extraordinarily calm for a man holding his insides. It could be his personality; it could be shock. She needed to warm him up and start an IV.
First, she needed to clean him up and look for wounds that weren’t as obvious.
“Keep your hands on the gauze for me, Coyote. I’m going to cut you out of your pants, give you a quick bath, and put you in one of our designer hospital gowns.”
“You do that, sweetheart. Just be careful. I dangle low.”
“I appreciate the heads up.” Sommer got to work with her trauma shears.
Coyote was turning gray on her.
The doctor stepped into view. “Hello, Mr …”
“Call me Coyote.”
“Yes, sir. We have things arranged.” She lifted the saline-saturated gauze to look.
“You’re going to take an ambulance ride over to the high school.
They’ve got a helicopter that’s going to land there to pick you up to take you to another hospital.
Quite the adventure.” She turned to Sommer and lifted a brow.
“Bruised knuckles. I haven’t found secondary wounds.”
“This was a knife?” Dr. Peters asked.
“I’m not exactly sure,” Coyote said. “I was punching some guy in the mouth, and I felt like I pissed myself. When I looked down, I had all this bloody ropey stuff hanging out.”
“IV push, antibiotics,” Dr. Peters told Sommer. “How much pain are you in, Coyote?”
“Pain?”
“Scale of one to ten.”
“Huh,” Coyote said.
“Have you been drinking tonight? Done any recreational drugs?” Dr. Peters asked.
His answer was a glower.
Dr. Peters gave him a tight smile. “Okay, then we’ll get you as comfortable as we can. Your ride should be here soon.”
Sommer turned and walked away with Dr. Peters, who said, “I’m ordering blood work. No pain meds until we get that back. I’d say he has a fair amount in his system already.”
Sommer got back to work.
She felt she was making good time with her checklist. Within ten minutes, she had Coyote cleaned, dressed, IV started, labs drawn, and the doctor consult finished.
She was coming up with a plan to hold Coyote’s intestines on his stomach.
If he passed out, they’d be uncontained.
A wheelchair was rolling by when the patient reached out his burly arm and caught the column. “That you, Coyote, you sonofabitch?”
“It’s me, princess.” Coyote moved to sit up, and Sommer tried to press his shoulders down.
The man’s eye was swollen shut, and it looked like his nose was broken. “I saw what you did, and I’m gonna kill you.”
The patient launched himself out of his wheelchair, his fist chambered for a punch.
Typically, Sommer had a fast-twitch reaction and could duck out of the way.
But with the floor slick with blood where her foot landed, Sommer had to brace her core muscles and tighten her glutes to keep herself upright when Broken Nose’s meaty fist swung at Coyote and caught her chin.
Sommer knew enough from her college kickboxing class that she needed to spin with that strike, or her glass jaw would put her out cold.
Knocked out in the ring was one thing.
Here, she didn’t want her head to be bouncing off the hard surface: broken jaw, whiplash, traumatic brain injury.
Luckily, the survival shot of adrenaline that spiked through her system slowed the world down, and she had the space and time for all those thoughts as she lifted a leg and did a kind of dancerly pirouette so the punch—even from a behemoth of a man—was glancing.
Spinning, Sommer grabbed her procedure table and dragged it to the corner, where she tucked down, one arm protectively circling her head and the other clinging to the metal table leg to hold it in place.
There was a loudspeaker Code Atlas call, then the legs of security officers and police came into view.
Coyote crashed onto the ground, out cold; his bowel had split, and now the smell exponentially filled the room.
Sommer clung in place, dry heaving as the cops slapped handcuffs into place on both men.
She’d file charges on that assault. Right now, she’d hunker in the corner and wait for enough calm and space before she crept out from under the table.
Finally clear, Sommer duck-walked to Coyote, thinking that no one could survive that.
But he blinked.
Then he blinked again.
Sommer was startled as more blue-clad legs came into view.
It was the EMT with their yellow transport gurney. “Is this our patient?” one asked.
Wendy said from behind them. “Given the change in his medical status, we’ll need to come up with an alternative plan.”
“This is Coyote,” Sommer said, coming to her feet, hand cupping her jaw and looking straight at Wendy, “He’s all yours.”