AN: So, I don't know exactly what year the current season is supposed to be set in. I'm wondering if it's in the actual post-COVID world where it's safe to not wear masks (which would be in 2022 or later) or if COVID ended in the middle of 2020 in the TGD universe. Also, I'm just going to assume that Shaun and Lea are their actual ages in 2021. Sorry for the rant, it's just kind of confusing lol. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the third chapter :)
Just as expected, once both Shaun and Lea were unloaded from the ambulance and then brought into the ER, the six surgeons and the two nurses quickly sprinted towards their assigned patients and wheeled them over to the empty bays as they took in all of the information the EMTs transferred to them.
Morgan, on the other hand, just stood by and watched helplessly as she waited for her former colleague and his girlfriend to be brought in. Park looked over his shoulder and shot her a somber look, which was probably his way of telling her that he could handle seeing an image very upsetting. He then turned his head away from her and focused on what was coming next.
She herself was also trying to mentally prepare for whatever she might see even though she wasn't going to be the one performing surgery on either Shaun or Lea. She wanted to help them, but she couldn't since she was no longer a surgeon.
She knew that she should probably alert Dr. Glassman, who was doing his duties in the clinic, about what happened to Shaun and Lea, but she wanted to stick around and see what the damage was. She was hoping that Shaun, Lea, and their unborn son were all still alive…and she wanted to hunt down the drunk driver who hit them and give them a hardcore punch in the face for all the harm he had done.
Just this afternoon when she ran into Lea in the elevator, Morgan asked her how she was feeling. Lea answered that she was feeling tired and achy, already wishing that this baby was out of her already and so over being pregnant.
"Just 12 more weeks to go and I'll finally be a mom," she said, giggling nervously before asking a question. "What do you think of the name Fox?"
Morgan's response before she stepped out of the elevator: "I honestly think it's a pretty cool name. It makes me think of Agent Mulder from 'The X-Files'."
As soon as the doors opened, she saw a pale and clammy Shaun (who was connected to the ambulatory cardiac monitor, fully bagged and intubated) being wheeled in on the stretcher that he was firmly strapped in; positioned on his side. A white blanket was covering his entire body except for his head and neck, which was solidly locked in a cervical collar. His whole face was bloody and she could see the cut on his forehead, the contusion to his cheek, and the glass buried in his cheek and lip.
"Shaun Murphy, 29-years-old, impaled in the left side of his torso by a tree branch when the car crashed! He has multiple lacerations, fractures to his clavicle, scapula, humerus, ulna, and radius! He has an open arm fracture! There are also three possible rib fractures; one might have punctured his lung because he's got a pneumothorax! We inserted a chest tube and an endotracheal tube en route! There is also internal bleeding and he went into cardiac arrest on the way over here! Tachycardia and hypotension! He has a respiratory rate of 48 and he's in hypovolemic shock!" One of the paramedics shouted.
The entire description of what was happening with Shaun made Morgan's heart sink as she watched Alex, Jordan, Dr. Andrews, and Nurse Hawkes grab the gurney and desperately rush Shaun over to Bay #3.
Less than five seconds later, another group of EMTs were bringing a pale-looking Lea in on a gurney. Unlike Shaun, she wasn't intubated (she was wearing an oxygen mask instead), but she was also connected to the cardiac monitor and had a cervical collar around her neck; also positioned on her side to keep her from choking on her own blood. The lower half of her body, including her pregnant belly, was covered with a blanket. Her eye was bruised pretty severely and so was her nose, which was gushing blood; as was her cheek. Morgan could see the glass that was submerged in her skin.
"Lea Dilallo, 28-years-old, 28 weeks pregnant, unstable pelvic fractures and preterm premature rupture of the membranes! No signs of vaginal bleeding, but there is definitely some internal bleeding in her abdomen! We're not sure if it's inside or outside her uterus, but wherever it is happening is causing her to go into shock! She also has a displaced femur fracture and the force of the crash must have pushed her leg up into her torso; plus a tibial and fibular fracture! Whiplash, a broken nose, and a few lacerations! Also tachycardic and hypotensive! She's barely breathing! She lost consciousness en route!" The paramedic yelled with urgency.
When Morgan heard what the EMT said, she couldn't help but feel sick to her stomach. Throughout medical school and her surgical residency, she had never seen a patient with a bone that pushed up that far into another region of their body. The fact that Lea was pregnant made the situation 1000 times worse than she would imagine if something like that happened to a non-pregnant patient. Lea was then whisked away to the bay next to Shaun by Dr. Lim, Claire, Asher, and Nurse Villanueva.
Shaun and Lea were both dying, and the chances of saving them and their baby were looking pretty slim.
The former surgical resident tried to pull herself together and keep calm as she watched her friends frantically access the parents-to-be and their injuries. Another thing that crossed her mind was the expressions on their faces as well as the facial expressions of Nurse Villanueva and Nurse Hawkes.
Every single one of them looked panicked and scared; nobody was sporting a stoic look like she was (yet she was freaking out deep down).
She could hear Asher terrifyingly gasp an "oh, my god" when he peeked under the blanket that was covering Lea's lower body. The facial expressions of Nurse Villanueva, Dr. Lim, and Claire demonstrated the exact same thing. Claire was trying to hold back her tears and Dr. Lim was taking deep breaths as she tried to prevent herself from falling apart or having a panic attack. Nurse Villanueva looked like she was trying not to throw up.
Meanwhile in the other bay, she could also hear Dr. Andrews mutter an "oh, Jesus" under his breath as he visually and manually examined Shaun's injuries under the blanket. Jordan had her hand over her mouth and her eyes were widened with gut-wrenching shock. Nurse Hawkes' mouth was hanging agape with terror. Alex turned his head away from Shaun for a while and then looked at Morgan, mouthing an "it's not good" to her.
When doctors, nurses, and EMTs uttered phrases like that with those tone of voices, that meant that the situation was very serious and possibly futile.
Morgan couldn't see the still bodies of Shaun and Lea as so many doctors and nurses were crowding around them, blocking her view. The sounds of their failing heartbeats and the scattering panics of the hospital staff were just enough to make her scream internally.
Neither Shaun nor Lea were reacting to the commotion around them. They were unaware of everything that was going on right now.
"Villanueva, I need an x-ray machine and the ultrasound machine now!" Dr. Lim screeched with a panic-stricken voice with tears forming in her eyes. "We need to see what the damage is and we also need to see if we can detect a fetal heartbeat! Dead or alive, this baby needs to come out now!"
"We need to x-ray his torso! He's also got a piece of glass lodged in his thigh, so we'll also need an ultrasound machine!" Dr. Andrews yelled at the top of his lungs. "Some of his internal organs may be punctured! Somebody needs to call Dr. Glassman right now!"
"And somebody needs to get social services to locate Lea's next of kin because her emergency contact is crashing right now!" Dr. Lim added, referring to Shaun.
Morgan zoned out of the horror that was happening around her and remembered the day after the earthquake and how it was rendered as her worst day ever at St. Bonaventure not only because it was the day that declared her surgical career to be over forever, but it was also the day that Dr. Melendez died. It was a sad morning for the entire crew of St. Bonaventure and the surgical team. The day they lost Nurse Petringa to COVID was also reckoned as one of the worst days ever at St. Bonaventure.
But now, since three lives (with two of them being the lives of St. Bonaventure employees and the third one being the life of their unborn child) were on the line now, tonight might join the Worst Day Ever awards with the days of the deaths of Dr. Melendez and Nurse Petringa…and also the days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We got a fetal heartbeat, but it's starting to drop a little bit!" Claire shouted with alarm but a bit of relief as she moved the ultrasound wand over Lea's bruised abdomen.
Hearing that phrase was enough to bring Morgan back into reality.
"We need to get her to an OR now before the fetus goes into further distress or before she gets even worse!" Dr. Lim urged.
"We have three open ORs! OR One, OR Three, and OR Five!" Nurse Fletcher, who was on the phone at the ER desk, shouted.
"Perfect! Get OR One prepped and ready! We need to get Lea there stat and prep for an emergency perimortem c-section! It's the best thing we can do if we want to attempt to save them both," Dr. Lim explained to her residents as she sighed with dreadful fear. "Also, page a nearby on-call neonatologist because we're going to need an incubator and a neonatal team in the OR for a very premature baby!"
It wasn't long before Lea was rushed away to an OR. Perimortem c-sections were usually done during impending maternal cardiac arrest, so Morgan knew how grave, urgent, and serious this was.
Pretty soon, Shaun was also hastily taken away to an OR. Alex didn't take his eyes off Morgan when he helped Jordan, Dr. Andrews, and Nurse Hawkes wheel their young colleague away.
"Morgan, you should notify Dr. Glassman about this," Alex reminded her before he turned his back towards her and then disappeared out of the ER and down the hall.
Morgan finally felt the tears squeeze from her eyes once everyone left for the OR ward and was out of sight. It wasn't like her to get this vulnerable in front of her colleagues, even when one of them was a critical patient here.
She felt useless, desperately wishing there was a way to help them; she wanted to scrub in with Alex so bad instead of watch from the operating theater, which was where she was headed next.
There was one thing she needed to do that didn't make her feel useless, and that was to text Dr. Glassman and let him know about Shaun and Lea. So, she pulled her phone out from her pocket once she made it to the operating theater.
As soon as Claire, Dr. Lim, and Asher finished prepping Lea for surgery, the first thing they did was perform an emergency c-section (they even had other surgeons scrub in to remove the glass and stitch up her superficial wounds and get that out of the way while they did it) because it wasn't long before placental abruption occurred, putting the lives of Lea and her baby in further danger.
This wasn't even supposed to be the way that the birth of Shaun and Lea's baby would go. They were supposed to be fully conscious - both of them - with Shaun and the doula right by Lea's side, supporting her and giving her reassurance that she got this. The baby would immediately be placed onto Lea's chest and then Shaun would be the one to cut the umbilical cord, and the baby would be bawling loudly.
But that wasn't happening.
Instead, the baby was going to be born while both parents were unconscious (while also in surgery) and then be taken away from them to the NICU and intubated because his lungs weren't mature enough for him to let out one cry. The cord was going to be cut by the nurses and doctors, not Shaun - the baby's father and Lea's birth partner.
Without hesitating, they immediately made a vertical incision from Lea's xiphoid to her pubis and continued to cut through the subcutaneous tissue and the peritoneum vertically until they got to her uterus (which was shifted a bit to her right caused by the pressure and force from her femur, which luckily didn't penetrate the side of her uterus). In less than two minutes, the baby boy had been delivered alive.
"Come on, little guy," Claire whispered as she gently extracted the baby, trying to swallow and suppress some of her tears.
If this was a healthy full-term baby, she would have snuck a quick cuddle before handing them off to the parent, but there was no time for that when they were born this soon or in need of resuscitation.
As soon as the premature neonate was out in less than five seconds, the umbilical cord was tightly clamped and cut. He was so small and he wasn't making any noises, but he thankfully had a pulse.
"Time of birth, 10:55 pm," Asher choked back as he shot a quick glance at the clock on the wall.
"Get him into the incubator and take him to the NICU now!" Claire demanded as she carefully handed the baby off to Nurse Villanueva, who helped place him into the incubator and leave him in the care of Dr. Veronica Nguyen (the nearby neonatologist on call) and her team of neonatal nurses so the surgical team could focus on trying to save Lea.
"He'll probably be fine," Dr. Lim reassured, looking at both Claire and Asher, but mostly Claire, who was deeply worried about how this was going to affect Audrey's mental health. Audrey could definitely detect Claire's worry for her. "Claire, I'm fine. Seriously. Now let's try and save Lea."
Claire could read the subtlety in Audrey's eyes and even under her surgical mask. The baby's health was the least of their worries; it was Lea's life they were more worried about. They needed to repair her fractured pelvis and leg as well as reposition her femur back into its rightful place and stop her bleeding.
All of a sudden, when Lea started to go into cardiac arrest, the team immediately sprung into action and started performing CPR.
Dr. Glassman had just finished seeing his final patient and was getting ready to head on home when he received a text from Morgan that Shaun and Lea were admitted as critical patients here.
MORGAN: Shaun and Lea were badly injured in a car accident. They've just been taken into surgery. I know Lea had a perimortem c-section. I don't know about the status of the baby. I'm watching Shaun in OR Three.
It didn't take long for him to immediately start dashing towards the OR that Morgan claimed Shaun was being operated in, sending a text to Debbie in the process. She had just finished making a blanket for Shaun and Lea's baby the night before. She planned to give it to them next week.
As Aaron frantically sprinted for the OR, he thought about the horrible things that could have happened to Shaun, Lea, and their baby. He was so excited to become a surrogate grandfather to that baby, and Shaun and Lea were also excited for the birth of their child…and now that was probably going to be ripped away.
His anticipatory anxiety increased the closer he got to the OR because he didn't know how bad Shaun and Lea (and their baby) were hurt. The closest information he got from Morgan was that Lea needed an emergency perimortem c-section, which meant that her vitals were becoming unstable…which was the appropriate situation when that type of c-section would need to be performed.
Whatever the status, he needed to be there for them - both Shaun and Lea.
He eventually made it to the operating theater above OR Three to find Morgan staring down from the window. She looked just as apprehensive as he was.
"Morgan, what happened?" Aaron queried frantically, his voice full of distress and fear.
Startled, Morgan immediately whirred around to face her boss. She looked just as shocked as he was. "Um, I think they were driving home. They got hit by a drunk driver. I heard that their injuries were severe."
"Morgan, what were their injuries?" Aaron panted.
"Shaun was impaled in the side by a tree branch. They're being careful removing it right now. He also had clavicular, scapular, humeral, and rib fractures. He had compound radial and ulnar fractures. From up here, it looks like he has internal injuries to some of his organs. He went into cardiac arrest en…" Morgan explained the best she could before Aaron cut her off.
"What about Lea?" He asked frantically. He felt sickened at what Shaun's injury was: impaled by a tree branch.
"I don't know that much about her, but the force of the crash pushed her femur up into her torso," sighed Morgan, trying to hold back her tears. "She's got leg and pelvic fractures and um…that's all I know. I'm sorry."
"It's fine, you don't have to know everything," Aaron sniffed, wiping his tears as he studied the operating field through the glass.
Shaun was unconscious and put under anesthesia on the operating table, surrounded by Jordan, Park, Andrews, Nurse Hawkes, Nurse Kim, and JL, the anesthesiologist. He couldn't see his cardiac rhythm or blood pressure.
The only thing he looked at was Shaun. He remembered the day Dr. Melendez died from septic shock and the day they lost Nurse Petringa to COVID. It was scary to think that they might lose two St. Bonaventure employees at once, and it was worse to think that it could be someone who he deeply cared about and basically raised and protected.
Aaron and Morgan were silent for a while as they stared through the glass. Shaun looked stable, but he was far from out of the woods.
He then heard his phone ding, so he pulled it out of his pocket only to notice that he received a text from Debbie, who was at home when he sent her the text about Shaun and Lea.
DEBBIE: Oh, my god! Are they alive? What about the baby? I'm about to leave now, I'm on my way!
The silence was then broken completely by Morgan saying something.
"You should go to the NICU and stay with the baby," she suggested. "He's probably in there all alone right now. He needs someone."
Morgan was probably right about that. Shaun and Lea were going to be in surgery for several hours and also for a long time, so they weren't going to be able to go to the NICU and sit by their baby's bedside.
Neonatal nurses and neonatologists were probably taking good care of him, but he needed a family member besides his parents by his side, and Aaron was one of the only two that were close by (the other being Debbie).
He didn't want to leave Shaun and he wanted to head to the operating theater of the OR where Lea was to see what her condition was, but the baby needed someone, especially when he considered the possibility that the kid might become an orphan.
Aaron didn't need to follow Dr. Nguyen's instructions before he entered the NICU: thoroughly wash hands, sanitize, gown up, and glove up. He's been a doctor for a few decades, so he knew how the system worked.
As soon as he entered and walked towards the incubator labeled "Baby Boy Dilallo-Murphy", he saw how tiny, weak, and fragile Shaun and Lea's son was right now.
He mostly zoned out when Dr. Nguyen explained everything to him: the survival rate, the possible short-term and long-term complications, the baby's development and milestones, etc. In fact, Aaron was already aware of most of this stuff. The only thing he paid attention to was the baby.
He was born 12 weeks early, classifying him as very premature. He weighed two pounds and 15.5 ounces at a length of 14.4 inches. He had a head circumference of 10.2 inches. He barely even looked like a baby. He looked more like a fetus (he still had some lanugo on his body) because he was still supposed to be in utero.
He had a breathing tube crammed down his throat and was hooked up to many monitors, lines, and IVs. A few leads were stuck to his chest, tracking his breathing and heart rate. A pulse ox was taped to his foot like a small bandage, emitting a soft, red light. A coated wire, which was the temperature probe, was placed on his skin with a patch. His blood pressure was being monitored through a tiny little cuff on his arm and he was being fed donor breast milk via a feeding tube through his nose.
"Can I…touch him?" Aaron requested nervously, placing his hand on the incubator, eyeing the baby as he made minimal movement.
"Of course you can, Dr. Glassman," the NICU nurse replied with a smile, opening the little door to the incubator.
As soon as Aaron was left alone with the baby and given all the important information from Dr. Nguyen and the nurse, he then placed his hand through the hole, gently stroking the baby's tennis ball-sized head and blinking back tears.
"Hey, buddy," he whispered softly, a slight smile forming on his face. "I know this isn't the voice you're used to hearing. You're probably used to hearing your mom or dad's voice. But this isn't your mom or dad talking right now, it's Grandpa Glassy. You've probably heard me before in the background whenever I was in the same room with your mom, but I never talked directly to you like your parents did. You…weren't supposed to come for another 12-14 weeks, yet here you are."
Aaron paused, wiping some of his tears before he continued…thinking of other things he should tell the baby.
"Your parents…they…haven't decided on a first name for you, but they decided that your middle name will be Steven, which is after your uncle. He died way before you were born," Aaron breathed deeply as he shed another tear, feeling like his stomach was in knots. "Anyway, your parents are in surgery right now, they um…they were hurt pretty badly. And to be honest, I don't know if they have a high chance of surviving like you do because your dad was impaled by a tree and your mom's femur was pushed up into her torso. I hope they live, even though I highly doubt it."
He was quiet for a while, trying not to think about the possibility that he might lose another child, before he heard a familiar voice behind him.
"Aaron, how is he doing?"
He turned around to see that it was Debbie, gowned up and gloved up with the newly knitted small blanket that was the size of a dish towel in her hands.
"He's stable so far," answered Aaron.
"What about Shaun and Lea? I heard that that Shaun was stabbed by a tree limb and that Lea's leg went into her torso. I also heard that Shaun went into cardiac arrest en route."
"I don't know about his parents. I haven't gotten any updates about them yet," he sighed somberly.
"Which probably means that they're still alive," Debbie reassured, trying to stay positive as she took her husband's hand into her own. "And the baby definitely has a high chance of survival."
Aaron knew that Debbie was right about that. Babies born at this point in gestation had a 90-95% chance of survival.
Rapid eye movement should be occurring at this stage in his development as well as his eyes starting to form images, and unlike Baby Girl Vouvali (the baby in the incubator next to Shaun and Lea's baby, who appeared to have been born a couple of weeks earlier than him), his eyelids weren't fused together and he wasn't receiving phototherapy. However, his retinas were still developing, which put him at risk for retinopathy of prematurity. He was also at risk for chronic lung disease and he could also experience some developmental delays.
But the possibility of the baby being blind or some disabilities or issues he could have as a result of being born early weren't really worrying them that much. Despite the super high chance of survival, what was actually worrying Aaron and Debbie were the deadly short-term complications.
Apnea with periods of bradycardia, jaundice, respiratory distress syndrome, intraventricular hemorrhage, patent ductus arteriosus, necrotizing enterocolitis, sepsis…any of those could possibly kill him within minutes.
For instance, his lungs weren't mature enough, and neither were his stomach and intestines. He barely had any body fat (his skin was thin with some visible veins and his ribcage was noticeable under his skin). He couldn't suck or swallow. His own body wasn't mature enough to maintain body temperature and he had no immune system yet, which made him vulnerable to infections.
"Have they contacted Lea's family yet?" Debbie asked out of curiosity, reaching her hand through the other hole of the incubator to touch the baby.
"Honestly, I don't know," faltered Aaron. "Social services is trying to locate her family right now. They live on the East Coast, so it's probably going to take a while for her parents to arrive. I heard that Lea is still not on good terms with her brother."
Aaron then wondered something. Did Shaun and Lea make guardianship arrangements for who would get custody of their child if they both died?
Obviously, he knew that Shaun and Lea would choose him and Debbie as guardians. Nevertheless, odds were that they probably didn't sort that out yet, and Aaron was hoping that he wouldn't find himself and Debbie fighting in court with Lea's parents over who would gain custody of their grandson if neither Shaun or Lea survived…or worse Shaun's mother unexpectedly showing up in San Jose without warning and then joining in the custody battle.
Another thing that Aaron was pissed about was the fact that he was irate at the drunk driver that hit Shaun and Lea. It angered him that the parents-to-be took the brunt of everything while they properly wore their seat belts and didn't have anything to drink while the drunk driver walked out without a scratch.
Shaun and Lea would probably forgive the drunk driver for what he had done. They were the most forgiving people he had ever known. However, Aaron didn't think he could ever forgive him. He was definitely filing a lawsuit if Shaun didn't make it, and Lea's parents were probably going to do the same thing if she dies. If Shaun and/or Lea survive, whether or not a lawsuit would be filed would be up to them.
But Aaron wanted to focus on the baby right now. He placed his hand back through the hole of the incubator and continued to talk to him. He touched his tiny hand and let him grip his index finger.
After Maddie died, he never pictured himself as a grandfather. And when Shaun walked into his office and told him that Lea was pregnant (and then later telling him that they were officially having a baby), he didn't think that it would happen this soon, but he was already happy for them and already excited.
"You're going to live," he whispered. "And your parents will, too."
AN: I hope you all enjoyed reading this, and you're probably relieved that at least their baby is alive and has a high chance of surviving, but stick around if you want to know what happens to Shaun and Lea, and please review! I appreciate constructive criticism.