AN: Here is the second chapter. I hope you enjoy and please review :)
It took only one second for Lea to realize what was happening around her once she opened her eyes. She wasn't sure how long she had been out (maybe five seconds), but she couldn't hear any sirens or see any emergency vehicles.
The first thing she noticed when she opened her eyes was the sheer amount of pain she was in. Her nose was feeling a bit tender and she could feel the blood gushing out of it (making her dizzy), and it was also feeling difficult to breathe through it. Her left cheek was stinging in agony. She touched it only to notice that something was stuck to it like styrofoam. Her neck and shoulders were sore and stiff to the point that it hurt to move them. She also felt this severe sharp pain in her left hip, groin, leg, lower back, and lower abdomen; plus a tingling sensation in her upper left thigh.
The second thing that caught her attention was that she could feel a gush of fluid between her legs and she was definitely sitting in a puddle of liquid that was pooling in her seat.
"Oh, no, no!" She muttered in terror, afraid to look down or reach her hand between her legs; she just clutched her belly tightly.
It was either urine, blood, or amniotic fluid, most likely blood or amniotic fluid; maybe both. Either her water broke or maybe the placenta detached or something. Whatever it was, she was already certain that the baby wasn't alive because she couldn't feel him move - not one kick, punch, or nudge.
She and Shaun didn't even have a name picked out for him yet.
The third thing that she perceived was how much grave danger she and Shaun were in right now. One thing she noticed was that her left leg was tightly pinned under the dashboard. She could see her reflection in the cracked side car mirror, realizing how banged up she was. Her right eye was badly bruised and so was her nose, which was also bloody. Pieces of glass pierced the flesh of her cheek.
"Lea?" She heard Shaun call her name weakly as he heard her hyperventilating full of panic.
She then turned her attention to her boyfriend, who was in pretty bad shape; probably in much worse shape than Lea was at the moment. He had a large open gash on his forehead that was streaming a waterfall of blood. Pieces of shrapnel and glass were piercing the flesh of his neck and cheek (there was a bigger piece lodged in his right thigh). She could see what was probably a bone poking out of his left arm.
But the most unsettling thing that caught Lea's attention was that Shaun had been impaled by a tree branch or limb that fell into the door's window when they crashed into the tree.
It was difficult for her not to gag at the disturbing sight.
When Shaun regained consciousness, he noticed that he was pressed up against the interior car door and a fallen tree branch; plus the agonizing, excruciating pain in the left side of his torso. He couldn't move and he could barely breathe.
Using his right hand, he felt around his lateral left side, only to feel like the tree branch was stuck to him, even piercing him as he felt the blood running down his side. That was when he realized that he had been stabbed by the tree branch.
As soon as he realized what had happened, nausea was the first sensation to hit him as he began to gag and gasp for air after feeling a stabbing pain between his ribs.
He could feel blood running down his face and neck as well as shrapnel and glass from the broken window buried in his skin. He couldn't move his left arm or shoulder because both his shoulder and upper back were stiff and hurt too much, probably because he might have had a clavicular, scapular, or humeral fracture. He didn't look, but he definitely knew that he had an open radial and ulnar fracture because he could feel the bone protrude from his skin as well as the blood pouring out. He could also feel a strong pain on the left side of his chest, especially when he took a breath (maybe a few broken ribs). His right leg also felt numb.
He regained consciousness seconds after the crash, but was now starting to slowly lose it again. He was going to die never getting the chance to be a father, or even hold his little boy.
Besides his own life, Shaun was also worried for Lea and his unborn child. He couldn't even turn to the right of him to see if she was okay because he was stabbed by a tree limb, but he could hear her whimpers very clear.
"Shaunie, I'm right here," she sobbed, scrunching up her face. "We're going to be okay."
"No. We…don't…know…that," he sputtered. He tried to turn his head, but that only led him to choke in agony. His breathing was definitely weak. "I…don't…think…I…will."
Both Shaun and Lea could hear a bloodcurdling voice outside the car shrieking a bunch of things.
"Oh, my god! I'm so sorry, I…I…I lost control!"
"Oh, my god! Jeez, it was just two drinks! I didn't think it would be too much!"
"Oh, god! I think he's dead!"
"Crap! She's pregnant!"
"Lea?" Shaun called out for his girlfriend again, his mouth and throat feeling dry as if he slept with his mouth open.
"I'm here, Shaun," she cried. "I'm here, Shaunie."
But Shaun couldn't hear her because he was delirious and slowly losing consciousness. By the time the paramedics had finally arrived, he completely lost consciousness. The last sensations he recalled were the sounds of him gasping and wheezing for air. He couldn't hear Lea screaming his name.
The last time Lea thought she was going to lose Shaun was when she thought he drowned in the basement of the brewery in the aftermath of an earthquake while trying to save someone, but she was sure that she was going to lose him for real this time…right when everything was going well in their life. They were so excited to have a baby, but now their dream of becoming parents was being ripped away from them.
It seemed like an eternity before Lea heard the door open on her right and felt a warm breath on her face as she heard someone call her.
"Ma'am? Can you hear me?" The voice asked.
"My baby," Lea sobbed, grieving at the possibility that she lost her baby and her boyfriend. She wasn't even paying attention to the firefighters who were trying to pry the driver's door off the car and cut the tree branch short so it would be easier to free Shaun.
"They'll check your baby at the hospital. Don't move your neck, I think you might have whiplash," the paramedic warned Lea while also reassuring her. "Right now, we have to focus on getting you out of here. How far along are you?"
"28 weeks," Lea sniffed as the paramedic settled a cervical collar around her neck. "I haven't felt him move at all."
The paramedic just glared at Lea with sorrow, not knowing what to say to the young, grimacing pregnant woman with a dislocated hip and fractured pelvis. The poor thing didn't even see that her femur had pushed up into her torso, but she could definitely feel it because she was screaming in agony.
Lea's relationship with her parents still wasn't fully repaired just yet (they did express real concern when she and Shaun announced the pregnancy to them) and her relationship with her brother was still on the rocks, but all she wanted right now was for her mommy or daddy to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be okay. She wanted a hug from her brother. She even wanted her dead Grandpa Rod.
"Well, I see that your membranes have ruptured, so your baby is going to be born early. The good news is that if your baby is still alive, he is viable. Can you tell me your name? Also, are you feeling any contractions?"
"Lea," the young woman whimpered before she coughed in distress. "And no, I'm not having contractions."
"Okay, Lea. Stay with me. I'm Julia. Can you wiggle your toes for me?" She asked urgently, taking a look at her injuries while the others were cutting an unconscious Shaun loose and sliding him on a backboard.
"Yes, I can feel my leg! Is Shaun alive?" She begged.
"Yes, he's still alive," sighed the paramedic. "Just stay with me, okay?"
Julia saw the driver's side of the vintage car and was surprised that the driver was still alive. The car was smashed up, both of the left side windows shattered and the mirror lying on the ground.
Lea was still conscious when she was put in an ambulance, but she completely lost consciousness before the ambulance reached the hospital.
Shaun, Claire, Alex, Asher, and Jordan were not on call right now, but Dr. Lim and Dr. Andrews and a few other surgeons were. Both of them were still working their 24-hour shift, and they only had four hours left before they would be able to go home.
But never in a million years would they have ever thought that they would be determined to stick around for a lot longer, especially when the ER received a call that two St. Bonaventure employees - a surgical resident and the IT director - were critically injured in a car accident and were being loaded into ambulances and getting taken to St. Bonaventure. The paramedics figured out that the victims worked at the hospital when they saw their ID badges.
As soon as Nurse Villanueva reported it to Dr. Lim, she didn't need any more information because she knew exactly who the victims were - she even alerted Claire, Alex, Asher, and Jordan on the surgical team group chat.
She dashed to the ER in shock and disbelief. This wasn't the first time someone on her team had ever been a patient here. First, it was when she contracted SARS during the ER quarantine. The second time was when Shaun was injured in a bar fight. The third, and the most tragic of all, was when Dr. Melendez suffered terminal injuries in the earthquake. Then there was Nurse Petringa dying of COVID. But this...this seemed worse because Shaun and his pregnant girlfriend were hit by a drunk driver. Nurse Villanueva even said that the paramedics told her that this was one of the worst accidents they have ever seen.
This isn't happening, she thought. Just this morning and this afternoon, Shaun was focusing on the surgery and asking her and others about their opinions on his baby name suggestions. And now, the father-to-be was a patient. Another thing that struck her was that she had to prepare herself for the kind of injuries she was going to see. She was already improving slowly with her PTSD treatment, and she was hoping that whatever disturbing injuries Shaun and Lea had wouldn't retrigger something...or worse, Shaun or Lea dying retriggering something.
"Dr. Andrews, I need your help. Come to the ER with me right now and scrub in!" Lim urgently called out to him as he was walking down the hall.
"Why? What's going on? Is everything okay?" Dr. Andrews asked, looking worried. By the look on the chief of surgery's face, her expression indicated that she received some bad news.
Dr. Lim sighed and paused before finally giving him the gut-wrenching answer. "It's Dr. Murphy. Paramedics are on their way over with him and Lea."
"What?" Dr. Andrews was beside himself when he heard those words. Only one hour ago while he was having a late dinner with Olivia (who was still living in San Jose), she told him to tell Shaun that she said congrats on the baby. "How bad is it?"
"Paramedics say their injuries are pretty bad," informed Dr. Lim.
When the entire team heard the news, they were close to the hospital and not very far. Morgan and Alex were having dinner at a nearby restaurant, Claire was having dinner in the hospital cafeteria, Asher was staying behind in the breakout room trying to figure something out, and Jordan was too tired to drive and was instead spending the night in an on-call room.
They all texted back that they were coming to participate in trying to help Shaun and Lea, but Lim and Andrews said they could page the surgeons on-call. Just as expected, the residents refused and wanted to help. Lim and Andrews wanted to continue to say no, but then they gave an "okay, fine."
In less than five minutes, the entire team (plus Morgan) had gathered together in the ER waiting for the two ambulances to arrive. All of them had worried and desperate looks on their faces.
"Okay, so here is what's going to happen. Browne, Wolke, you two are helping me with Lea," instructed Dr. Lim. "Allen, Park, you two help Dr. Andrews with Shaun."
When the two ambulances finally arrived, the team of doctors braced themselves for what they were about to see.
AN: Sorry, for the cliffhanger, but I will continue...and we will still see the perspectives of the other characters on their reactions to this. If you're wondering about the fate of Shaun and Lea's baby, you'll find out about it in the next chapter. Please review :)