White-Out by Brownie
Disclaimer: These characters are mine now, and I'm holding them for a hefty ransom.
Side-notes: Please pardon me for taking so long. You see, there's school, and I have to be educated. God forbid I don't know the laws of physics. Anyhow, once again forgive my lack of medical knowledge and so on and so on.
* * *
Carter was having a bit of trouble working on the girl's arm for a number of reasons- his fingers were still numb from the cold, he was worried about Corday, and was perplexed about what the hell had gone wrong back there? The driver had seemed fine the whole way to the hospital, what had happened? It never occurred to Carter that maybe they just couldn't see a thing ahead of them. He kept peeking down the hall out of curiousity, wondering how Malucci was. When Carter had passed him by, he hadn't looked too good, but not exactly on the brink of death either.
Carter had finally finished what he was doing when Corday bursted into the ER, pilot helping her carry a backboard, paramedic keeping it balanced towards the end of the thing with his fingers. The way his hands were wrapped up, Carter wondered what the hell the guy thought he was doing, but someone had to get the back end, so he was doing what he could. Carter vaguely wondered where her other patient was when the nurse in the room called his attention back.
"Are you going to send her up now or what?" she asked.
"Yea," Carter said, "Would you bring her?" The nurse nodded and rolled her off towards the elevators. He walked towards Corday as she shouted off statistics to the nurses.
"You're late," he said, "What happened?"
"Landed in a tree," she said, teeth chattering, "What happened in here, it looks like hell broke loose."
"It did," Carter told her, "Ambulance came crashing in, flattened Malucci against the wall."
"You're kidding," Corday said, eyes wide, "Is he okay?"
"Should be, but I really can't tell you now, Greene has him," Carter said, "You want me to take care of this? You look like you're freezing."
She considered this for a few seconds, then said, "Just take care of her until I can feel my hands, and then I'll take over." With that, Carter pushed the gurney into the room he'd just left, where the nurses weren't quite finished cleaning up yet. The patient's moniters looked good, but you could never be too careful with a head injury.
"Can you feel your hands and feet?" Carter asked.
"Barely," the patient said, "They're freezing."
"We'll be taking care of that in a minute," Carter said, "Can you move them?"
"Yes," she said.
Once Carter was satisfied that all her limbs and organs were working, he said, "Well, it looks like you're going to be okay. You didn't break anything, at least. You have a concussion, though, so we'll have to keep you overnight." He was just about to send her up when Corday arrived.
"How's she look?" she asked, pulling on a pair of gloves.
"Everything seems fine," Carter told her, "I'll have them run a few tests upstairs, but it looks like it's just a concussion."
"Well that's a relief," Corday said as the nurses wheeled the woman out to the elevators, "Her husband didn't make it."
"What happened?" Carter asked, "You were in the chopper, you should have gotten here long before me."
"Chopper landed in a tree," Corday said, "We were afraid to move, but the wind knocked it out anyway. So we walked the rest of the way. We're all fine, but my pager's broken. I'm sure Robert's pissed."
"Quite," Carter said, chuckling, "You might want to let Mark know you're okay before you go up, though. From what I heard he spent about twenty minutes pacing before the ambulances arrived." Corday laughed, then left to find him.
* * *
Dr. Greene wasn't thinking about Corday much at the moment- the moniters all around him were making enough noise to be heard down the hallway. They had Kovac back in the room for about five minutes before Benton demanded they send him back, because he seemed to have "run out of hands." Weaver had called Kovac over before when she realized they were going to have to open Malucci's ribcage- there was bleeding around his heart, among other things. Weaver was in there now with the defibrilators. The only thing that came to mind when Greene saw what had happened was a mess. He didn't know ribs could shatter like that.
"Charge to two-hundred," Weaver shouted, "Clear!" Second try. The moniters beeped rythmically again. Finally, an improvement. "Mark, did you find the source yet?" There was a hell of a lot of blood.
"Somewhere in the left lung," he said, "Can I get some suction over here?" An area was cleared, and Greene realized that the lung was also filling with blood. "Dammit, we have to get him up to OR, now."
"They're a bit backed up…" Weaver started, then swung the door of the room open.
"What is it?" Greene asked.
"Corday's back," she said, flagging her down in the hall, "Elizabeth! Are you okay?"
"Just fine, Kerry, thank you," Corday said, rushing into the room, "Do you need help?"
"Bleeding around the heart and left lung," Greene said, looking at her face to be sure that she was alright. Besides a cut that was almost hidden by her goggles, she seemed just fine.
She took one quick look at the mess and said, "Okay, I'm bringing him up now, it can't wait any longer. Is Anspaugh up there?"
"He's there, but he might be busy," Weaver said, positioning herself at the head of the gurney. In a matter of seconds, Greene found himself standing in the room alone. He sighed in relief- he'd been thinking the worst, that the chopper had crashed somewhere, and they'd never be able to find it under the snow, and when it finally was found that it would have been too late.
Then his thoughts changed to Malucci. It wasn't looking all that great for him, but if Corday worked quick enough, and if they got lucky and Anspaugh was able to help her, maybe it would be okay. He looked through the window into the other room, and Kovac looked back at him, eyebrows raised questioningly. Greene could only shrug. Then he left to start on the myriad of minors waiting out in chairs.
* * *
"Elizabeth, good to see you back," Romano said as the elevator doors opened. He had just finished with the head injury- the guy would probably be a vegetable, but he'd live- and had been waiting for them to drag that poor fool Malucci up and beg for his help.
"Where's Anspaugh?" Corday asked immediately as Romano took a posistion pushing the gurney towards an open room.
"Tied up," Romano said, "Lucky for you all, I just finished."
"So you'll be helping?" she asked. He wouldn't have been surprised to see her turn green by the sound of her voice. He seemed to have that effect on people.
"Yes I shall," he said, turning into the empty room where some attendants and nurses were waiting. When they pulled back the material covering Malucci's chest, Romano said, "Whoa, remind never to get in the way of a moving ambulance." The look on Corday's face said that she wished to push him in front of one. "So what's the story in here?" He listened patiently as Corday spouted off the statistics, which he could read perfectly well off the moniters, and told him that they hadn't found where all the blood was coming from yet.
"Well then, shall we get started?" Romano asked, pulling on his surgical mask, "I shudder to think how boring Weaver's life would be without Malucci down there to annoy the crap out of her, don't you Elizabeth? I guess we'll just have to save this one."
"Don't do us any favors," Corday said sarcastically, and Romano smirked.
* * *
~ Almost finished! Patience, people. (Hey, only doctors have patients.) Geez, I feel like I'm dragging this out. It's about time for an ending. Be happy, I won't be taking too long with the rest of this, I have this week off. Give it another day or two. Unless you enjoy the suspense… hehe.