Kim raced through the doors at Chicago med as soon as she arrived only to be stopped by Maggie.
"Hey, hey, hey, Kim! Stop! You know you can't go back there." Maggie quickly grabbed Kim, and eased her into one of the waiting room chairs.
"I need to see him, Maggie." Kim cried.
"He's not back there." Maggie pointed to the emergency room doors that Kim had tried to go through. She instantly regretted not finishing her sentence sooner as she noticed the panic spread across Kim's face. "They took him straight back to surgery."
Kim sighed with relief. At least that meant he was still alive. "Is he… Is he going to be ok?" It's a question she was almost afraid to ask, but she needed to know.
"I'll be honest Kim, I don't know. He's in pretty rough shape, but he's got the best working on him right now." Maggie wished she had better news.
Just as Maggie was about to suggest calling someone to come keep Kim company, Sylvie and her partner walked through the doors to head back to their ambulance. Sylvie noticed Kim sitting there and told her partner she would meet him at the ambulance and went over to talk to Kim. "Hey Kim." Sylvie placed a hand on Kim's shoulder and kneeled down in front of her. "I'm sorry about earlier, it's just…" She paused not exactly sure how she wanted to finish her sentence. "He's in really bad shape, and God forbid something happened, I didn't want that to be your last memory of him."
Kim didn't respond. She couldn't even think of something happening to Adam, especially knowing how bad she hurt him earlier. She couldn't let things end like that.
Maggie rubbed a hand against Kim's thigh, "You want us to call someone?"
Kim hadn't even thought of telling the rest of the team, and honestly, she wasn't sure if she wanted any company right now. She knew they needed to know though, so she nodded her head. Before Maggie or Sylvie even had a chance to move, Trudy Platt came running through the door, looking around until she spotted Kim.
The three women were surprised to see Trudy join the group, unsure of how she found out.
"Where is he? Is he going to be ok? Are you ok?" She couldn't stop the words from coming out.
"Sarge, what are you… how did you?" Kim was once again unable to finish her sentence.
"Mouch picked up an extra shift, he was at the scene. He didn't give me details, just said Adam was in an accident and that I needed to get to Med."
Kim lost all control of the small bit of composure she was able to gather since arriving at med and the tears began to fall. Trudy leaned over to give Kim a hug, realizing it must be worse than she thought. Looking over at Sylvie and Maggie, she asked "How bad is he?"
Their faces told her everything. "It's bad." Sylvie admitted. She was conflicted about how much to tell them, but if the roles were reversed, she would want to know the truth. "Real bad. He's got quite a few pretty serious injuries. I don't know the full extent yet, but there was some obvious internal bleeding, significant blood loss, a collapsed lung…" She paused again before continuing. "We lost him once, right before we got here. My partner was able to get him back. He's fighting though, that's the most important thing to remember." She then hugged both Kim and Trudy before heading to her next call.
Maggie returned to her desk, needing to get back to work despite the situation. This was the part of her job that she hated the most. The part where one of her good friends is seriously, possibly fatally injured, and she needs to just push it down and act like everything is ok.
Twenty minutes later, the rest of the team started to trickle in. Trudy had enough sense to call Hank on her way to the hospital and give him a heads up. He then got a hold of the rest of the unit. Within the hour, the whole team was there.
They sat there for hours, waiting for any sort of update. Kim was falling apart more and more as the clock continued to tick. Finally, after what felt like forever, Will Halstead walked through the doors.
Jay was the first one to his feet at the sight of his brother. The rest, with the exception of Kim, joined him. Will hesitantly made his way over to his friends.
"How is he?" Jay asked, trying to get a read on his brother.
"He's alive. I'll start with that." Will felt like that was the most important thing to lead with. "He's in really bad shape though."
"Everyone keeps saying that, but no one will give us details. Be straight with us Will." Kim was starting to lose any bit of patience she had left.
"When he came, we took him straight up to surgery. He had severe internal bleeding we needed to get under control. We went in and found he had a lacerated kidney and ruptured spleen. We repaired the kidney, but had to remove part of his spleen. He had a dislocated jaw that was popped back into place during intubation, eleven broken ribs, two had punctured a lung, causing it to collapse. We inserted a chest tube to help release the air built up in his chest and reinflate the lung. Two of the ribs were repaired with titanium plates, the rest will heal on their own." Will paused before continuing. "His left hand was crushed and he had a compound fracture in his left forearm. We repaired the hand as much as we could for now and cleaned out both the hand and arm thoroughly, but there is still a high chance he'll develop an infection."
"What happens if he does?" Hailey asked.
"We'll cross that bridge if it comes. We started him on the heaviest antibiotics we could to try to avoid the possibility. As far as his hand and arm go, we managed to repair the arm with a plate and six screws. His hand will most likely require two, possibly three more surgeries in order to get it functioning correctly again."
"Will he regain full use of it?" Hank asked, knowing Adam was a lefty.
"It's too soon to say, but the surgeon seems cautiously optimistic about it. Those were just the injuries the surgeons wanted to focus on for now. I'm not gonna lie to you guys, we lost him three more times. Each time we struggled more to get him back so the doctors called it. Said the surgeries were becoming too stressful on his body and that he needed a break. The rest of the injuries don't seem life threatening, so they felt like they reached a good stopping point."
"What are the rest of the injuries?" Kevin asked, concerned about his best friend.
Will sighed again, there were quite a few injuries, some that sounded worse than they actually were. "Once they feel like he's strong enough to the OR, they want to repair a fractured hip and broken collarbone. After that, they'll probably revisit his hand, then repair a torn rotator cuff and ACL. As far as the injuries that won't require surgery, he has a slight skull fracture that will heal on its own, severe concussion, a broken left cheek bone, herniated disks, a grade 2 lumbar strain, a broken right wrist, broken left leg and ankle, and right foot."
"Jesus Christ." Hank shook his head as Will rattled off the grocery list of injuries Adam managed to receive. He had no idea how Adam was still alive, but he was thankful he somehow was. Now he just needed to stay that way.
"I need to see him." Kim finally said through tears.
"He's being settled into a room in ICU. As soon as he's settled, I'll let you know." Will replied.
Kim just nodded. At least she was close to being able to see him.
"Thanks, Will." Jay nodded to his brother.
"Of course. Anything else I can do for you guys just let me know. Adam's a fighter. He's got a long way to go, but if anyone can pull this, I believe it's him." Will wasn't entirely sure he even believed his own words, but he needed his friends to keep hope." He then started to walk away when he was stopped by Hailey.
"Will? One more question. The person who hit him… how are they?" She hated asking and if she was really being honest with herself, didn't really care, but usually they hear something about any other person involved and so far, they've heard nothing.
"Actually, Adam was the only one brought in." Will said before leaving.
The rest of the team just looked at each other. How could someone involved in an accident that seriously injured one of their own, not need any type of medical treatment. Hank made a mental note to look into that first thing when he returned to work the next day. Something was off and he was gonna figure out what. For now, he was gonna support his team and pray like hell that Adam pulls through this.