WARNING: I am not a medical expert, and I have done my best with my prior medical knowledge and the uses of Dr Google and Dr Wikipedia (haha) and many websites of people who have medical knowledge, so if anything is incorrect or not perfect then I'm sorry ahead of this, but I hope you enjoy the chapter anyway.
Twelve
"Female driver with a broken arm exposed, but reduced on the scene, blood pressure 140 over 90, and pulse was 124, given no pain relief at the request of the patient, she been in and out of consciousness, she has a bleeding head injury, bandaged, we collared and boarded her, as she complained of dizziness, and a headache, on-scene she had nausea, so we administered Phenergan via the IV in her arm, GCS 7 from a rollover truck accident, and given a litre of Saline," The paramedic instructed.
"Take her to Baghdad," Maggie told the paramedics, "Any ID guys?" She asked as she walked quickly to the infamous trauma room 'Baghdad'. "Will, I need you over here" She commented.
"Not any we could find, but the one of the fire crew said she was called 'Erin' but she kept on asking after her I think boyfriend, calling him 'Jay', he was in the ambulance behind us." The paramedic answered.
"Jay, as in Jay Halstead?" Will asked, as he peered at the female's face which was bruised, bleeding and swollen but he still recognised her face, the face of who was supposed to be his sister in law.
"Couldn't say, she just said Jay, but she's pretty out of it?" the paramedic's partner said.
"It's Erin... Erin Lindsay, she from the 21st precinct, that means it, Jay, it's Jay that coming in, he was at that Police benefit, how the hell did this happen?" Will yelled as he became more and more concerned over his brother's health.
"Will get out of here, Maggie, tell me everything," Natalie took charge over the possible critical care of the police officer.
"This is Erin Lindsay, rollover truck accident, GSC 7, fading in and out of consciousness, pulse 132, bp is 145 over 93, possible head injury and a broken arm, and she refused to accept pain relief, she's got a pneumothorax Maggie released the information of the Sergeant of the Intelligence Unit.
"Okay, no pain relief that explains the part about that high blood pressure and heart rate, but I'm worried about that head injury, book in an MRI, CT and let's see if we can give her some paracetamol everything give some pain relief," The on-call doctor mentioned to junior doctors and nurses in the trauma room.
They started to cut her dress, they placed a gown on top of her as they cut the dress off her, then they placed a surgical sheet over the surgical site. They got the kit for a collapsed lung, she grabbed a silver scalpel, before she had administered her with lidocaine, to the area, so it would numb it, they dug the scalpel deep into her upper chest under her rib to get her lung, when she started inserting a chest tube between the ribs to remove the excess air. Erin gasped for air as she could breathe again from the impact she had with the truck. Her injuries weren't exactly textbook, she had a collapsed lung, a broken arm and other than that she seemed fine, but her possible head injury was Natalie's made concern.
"Erin, take a big deep breath for me," Natalie asked when the chest tube was in Erin, and she began to cough violently until she got her breath back in her lungs.
"Erin can we give you some pain relief," Will asked, as he let Natalie take over, while he worried about his brother who was one of the incomings from the accident.
"Will get out of here, I can't trust you to think straight when your brother is going to be incoming any second, Will get out now!" Natalie ordered him out of the trauma room.
"Erin, Erin! " Natalie flashed her torch eye in her patient's eyes trying to wake her patient from a daze to be alert enough to make her own medical decision, "Erin can we give you some paracetamol or anything pain relief?" She asked.
"NO!" She refused as she started to daze again she battled unconsciousness as she explained her own reasoning why," I can cope... I was addicted to the drugs… No, I won't take them" She whimpered as her eyes fluttered rapidly as she tried to cope with the pain of everything in her body hurting presently at the same time.
"Okay Erin, we won't give you anything, but I need you to consent to an MRI, X-ray and a CT scan?" She asked.
"Yeah, do it…" Erin replied breathlessly.
"Erin, this nurse is going to take you for an MRI, so that we can check your head injury, so we can find out if it is more serious than we think," Natalie spoke.
"I'll contact her emergency contact, Look after her, she's one of our own," Maggie commented as she walked towards the nurse's station in the centre of the emergency department.
…
Five minutes after Erin had been rushed into the emergency room, the other paramedics that had been on the scene, with the firefighters helping them escape the burning truck, were dealing with Jay and had just brought him. His tuxedo had been ripped to shreds, he had IV's in both of his arms, giving him saline, his pants had been ripped by the plastic that was lodged in his leg from the door card that had broken. His suit had him cut off him, as they had checked the bruising on his chest from the possible broken rib he had sustained in the crash.
"Male passenger with minor lacerations. BP 115 over 75, Pulse 89 beats per minute, he's boarded and collared as a precaution from a rollover truck accident. GCS 14, an oxygen mask due to breathless, cautionary prognosis of some broken ribs, we have given him pints of saline, he has lost about a pint of blood from the deep cut to his left leg that was pinned under the dashboard, no crush injuries seem to be present. Also clear dislocated shoulder which was reduced on scene." The paramedic explained.
"Take him to Trauma 2," Maggie told the second set of paramedics in the last 5 minutes to take the police officer to another trauma room, as she held the phone from the nurse's station getting Erin's emergency contact on the line."
"Jay is that you, Jay" Will ran across the emergency room towards the trauma area so he could see if it was his brother.
"Will…" Jay replied.
"Jay, I'm here, I'm here Jay, what the hell happened?" Will questioned.
"Ethan I need you on that, its Will's brother," Maggie instructed the doctor to deal with the case of the
"Get a pint of blood, I want to get his blood level back up to normal," Ethan asked April to get.
"Right on it," April replied.
"He has a clear bruising to the face, I need a full-body x-ray, and retailed one on the face, It looks a little deformed especially with that cut near it, I'm suspecting it's a broken cheekbone," Ethan spoke, "So it's X-ray time for you, we need to know if you have any broken bones,"
"Okay," Jay wicked as he moved slightly on the gurney still in pain.
"Right, this nurse is going to take you, I'm going to give you a milligram of morphine for the pain." Ethan discussed.
"Thanks, Ethan," Jay thanked.
"It's fine, it's my job, like serving and protecting is yours, I will see you soon, and I will discuss X-rays when I get the results," Ethan explained.
...
"Hi Erin, Hank is waiting in the waiting room to see, but before he can come in I need to tell you about your scan results," Natalie explained, "Right from your X-ray it looks like you have a clean break between both the radius and ulna in your arm, meaning it will be in a cast for a while. Probably between 6 and 8 weeks" She told the impatient Erin.
"Okay," Erin groaned as she knew that she would have to be out of action for a while.
"But from your CT and MRI we can see a small bleed on the brain, and we are going to watch and wait to see if it resolves itself if not then it could have to become a surgical issue," Natalie explained to her, as Erin stared at the other side of the emergency department to look at Jay and his brother, Will, sitting next to him.
"How bad is Natalie," Erin questioned scared about her head
"It's bad enough to have me concerned but all of your injured stitches I think that it is a waiting game if it reduces itself which I think to seem like it will then it will be fine, but if you feel a headache or anything changes tell me because then we will have not an option but to go to the OR," Natalie explained as she knew Erin pretty well from when she originally lived in Chicago before her move to New York and that with Erin honesty was the best policy.
"Okay, hopefully, it goes away then," Erin said, giving hope to herself.
"Don't worry until we need to be. I know how you are, and I think honesty is the best policy," Natalie suggested.
"Yeah, thank you, Nat," She thanked her for her honesty because she knew she just needed to be honest with her at this point in time.
"Before I go, do you hurt anywhere else, other than your head, your legs, abdomen, any pain,"
"No, I just have a throbbing headache,"
"Okay since you won't let me give you anything I'll come check on you in 10 minutes, in a short while I'll take you for an MRI and CT scan of your head, and we will see if your brian bleed had disappeared.
When could I see Jay, I want to see how he is doing?" Erin questioned nervously.
"Not yet both of you are bed-bound for now, but you too are both being admitted so probably when you are moved up to the wards," Natalie spoke.
"Okay thanks, Nat. Would Hank be able to come in now?" Erin asked.
"Yeah sure, I'll get a nurse to go get him from the waiting room," Natalie replied.
"Thank you," Erin said as Natalie walked away to the nurse's station, and she did as she said she would, she asked a nurse to get Hank from the waiting room.
A nurse and Hank walked into her hospital trauma room, he looked at her broken body, she had cuts and grazes across the body, her ballroom gown was ruined but still hugging her slim figure, they had rushed her CT, MRI and X-rays, which was why she still had the slim dress that didn't flurry out to the sides and had just feel to the ground.
"Erin, my god," Hank amazed at the extent of the injuries of his foster daughter, "How are you, how is Jay, I was told that you were together in the truck," Hank questioned
"Yeah I was in the truck with Jay, we had gone for cookie dough, I was driving, I never saw the truck I came out of nowhere, I don't know where Jay is, I don't know if he is okay," She whimpered.
"Okay, okay, in a minute I'll try to find out how he is I know he is here, but I don't know where, but how are you,
I'm okay, seriously" She winced as she had tried to sit up on the gurney, yet fell straight back down onto the bed.
"Like hell you are Erin, you were in a rollover truck accident, you could have died, the nurse told me all about it," Voight had spoken angrily.
"Okay, but it could be worse," Erin kidded but Hank seemed to not get her sense of humour.
"Worse, you have got to be kidding me," He had spoken, as she let out a small painful giggle, "Okay, okay I'll calm down, just when I got that call, I just thought that I had lost you too, your all I have left, Camille and Justin are gone…"
"I dreamt when I was in the car, I saw Camille, she told me that she loved me… she said that I could stay with her… but I couldn't it told I wasn't to stop fighting… she told me to look after you and that she loved you… loved us... she was talking to me it felt so rea…" She dazed away as she spoke.
"Erin… Erin! Erin!" Hak tried to shake her awake but she wouldn't, the machine started to beep furiously and then a monotone sound began to fill the room.
...
"Hi Jay, from the X-rays you don't have a broken cheekbone, from the cut on your cheek, there is a piece of glass, small enough to make the cheek look deformed, put it under the skin so it needs to be removed, but you do have a hairline fracture on your right leg, probably from the impact of the dashboard hitting and crushing that leg, so crutches for a couple of days or a week, just until we can get you another X-ray to check the healing progress," Ethan detailed to his patient, as he had brought over a suture kit and some tweezers so that he could remove the glass.
"Okay, that's fine, great thanks, that brilliant, I got away from that crash pretty undamaged then, just need to get this glass out then," Jay spoke as he was looking around the ER for his old partner, she had come in first and yet he had not known how she was doing yet.
"Everything okay, Jay?" Ethan asked intrigued at the man's behaviour as Will had just left to get him a glass of water.
"It's just, how's Erin? She was in the car with me, I just haven't seen her yet, is she okay?" Jay was concerned as he spoke emotionally about his partner, Will walked back into the room as he brought a glass of water into the room as Ethan removed the glass from is brother's face.
"I'll go find out for you," Will offered.
"Thanks, Will," Jay thanked his brother going to find out how she was doing, knowing that Erin and Will weren't the best of friends, but Will went to go check and find out because he knew that his brother still cared about her even if he didn't want to because he knew that his brother still loved her.
"That's what brothers are for," Will spoke as he walked away from Jay and Ethan who was just putting the last sutures in his face.
...
"Help! Help! Over here, she was talking and then they went limp and the machine went off!" Hank shouted begging for any member of the ER to help Erin.
"She's crashing!" Will ran over as he called the code, " Someone bag her."
"On it Will, Sats 88% no pulse," April recalled the information.
Will and Natalie removed her gown they had put on her after she had been cut out of her dress for some privacy, they had seen some bruising to her entire left side, but now they could tell that she could be going into hemorrhagic shock from the internal bleeding in her abdomen.
"Crash cart now," Natalie yelled as Ethan dragged the crash cart towards the trauma bay, "Charge to 100 joules."
"Clear?" Will asked the code team.
"Clear." They all called.
"She has major left side internal bleeding, a round of adrenaline," Natalie spoke, "She didn't feel it, her head what was causing her pain,"
Meanwhile, Jay was shouting and demanding to be heard he wanted to know if she was okay if she was alive, he had heard the code team call the code, but he didn't hear or see anything else after Maggie had come to talk to him, she had closed the curtain so he didn't have to watch from the other side of the emergency room. He had heard Hank break down and cry. It was the first time Jay had ever heard the tough man cry in front of people, Erin had told him he cried for days when Justin had died. Hank had always been a private person, keeping his emotions from other people so he could keep his appearance of being a man who didn't show his true loving, caring emotions to anyone other than his family, but when it had to come to Erin coding in front of him, he had just broken down in front everyone in the ED.
"Charge again," Will asked as they shocked her again, trying to make her regain sinus rhythm again.
"Clear?" Will asked as part of the procedure to ask the team to avoid accidents.
"Clear." Everyone was assured after they all spoke accepted the command to clear the bed.
"Charge to 150 joules, and another one of adrenaline," Will asked as he addressed the code team.
"Clear?" He questioned.
"Clear." The code team said.
"Back in sinus rhythm" April called.
"Pack everything onto the gurney now, let's get her to the OR now, and page a neurosurgeon, I want them checking on her brain bleed, and we're gonna need general, page anyone, she is going to need everyone," Will ordered as he placed the heart monitor between her legs and dragged the gurney to the OR, with the help of Natalie, Ethan and April.
"We are gonna need blood, saline, and packing, we don't know how bad the extent is the bleeding in her belly," Ethan spoke as they pulled her on her gurney into the left, as Maggie phoned the OR ahead to get ready for them.