Two of the people watching rushed back into the hospital that they had just left to get Mulder the urgent attention that he so obviously needed. They returned with two doctors and two nurses pushing a gurney over to Mulder, who was still completely unresponsive. A third nurse followed close behind them with a portable defibrillator and a backboard. They quickly reached Mulder and the driver, who had been performing CPR on him, stood back and let them take over.

"Take over CPR, Collins. We're going to have to logroll him and get him on the backboard before we shock him. Everyone get in position, this has to be done quickly. Matthews, support his neck and head. Jamieson, make sure you're ready to fit the board in place as soon as we roll him. Everyone ready? ... On my count, 1,2,3 roll."

The five medical staff worked quickly and efficiently to get Mulder strapped onto the backboard and the neck collar on him. Once he was fully immobilised, the more senior doctor unhooked the paddles from the defibrillator and motioned to the younger doctor to be ready with the ambu-bag in order to provide artificial respiration. The nurses stood by, waiting for them to shock Mulder with one of them ready to check for a pulse after each attempt.

"Charge to 200... Clear..."

"...Still no pulse."

"Let's go again. Charge to 300... Clear..."

"...Nothing."

"Go to 350...Clear..."

"...I've got a faint pulse! We got him back."

"Great. Matthews, keep bagging him. Let's get him on the gurney and inside. Now."

Keeping him on the backboard, four of them lifted him onto the waiting gurney, the fifth still helping him breath with the ambu-bag. The crowd cleared a path for them to get through, all of them still dumbstruck by the site they had just witnessed. The driver followed them as they started to move the gurney and, still shaky, was helped along by one of the bystanders. The medical team rolled the gurney across the road and into the entrance of the ER where they were met by the trauma surgeon.

"Give me the bullet."

"MVA, car versus pedestrian. Victim is an approx. 30 yr old white male. BP 100/50, pulse 120. Lost his vitals in the field but got him back after three shock attempts. He's got blunt trauma to the abdomen, obvious break to his right lower extremity and a shoulder dislocation. His GCS is 3."

"What's open?"

"Trauma 2."

"Let's go."

The gurney was pushed hurriedly along to one of the trauma rooms and Mulder was put on an EKG machine, measuring each beat of his heart. He remained unconscious as all the doctors and nurses worked on him, trying to save his life. The senior doctor kept Matthews, the med-student, busy answering his questions as they performed the necessary procedures. Orders were shouted, commands were obeyed and more equipment was brought in as life-threatening conditions other than his head injury were brought to light.

"Hang two litres of saline and run them in wide open. I need a type and cross-match for 6. We need X-rays; cross table c-
spine, chest, pelvis and right lower extremity. Get the portable X-ray in here now."

"His pulse ox is too low. We're going to need to intubate. Give me Lidocaine - 1mg/kg IV. Why are we giving him this before we intubate him, Matthews?"

"To prevent an increase in his intercranial pressure."

"That's correct. Okay, he's intubated. Listen to the chest Matthews, what do you hear?"

"Decreased breath sounds on the right but no mid-line shift of the trachea."

"Which means what?"

"He's got a pneumothorax of the right lung. Also indicated by the pleural stripe that has fallen away from the chest wall on his chest X-ray."

"Good. Jamieson, prep the chest and have suction ready, he's going to need a chest tube."

"Right, the chest tubes in. His BP's dropping - he's bleeding out, we can't wait for the type specific. Get the O-neg going now Collins."

"First two units are in."

"He's tachycardic and his BP's still dropping. He's losing blood and going into hypovalemic shock. Hang another two units of O-neg on the rapid infuser and set up for a peritoneal lavage, we need to find out the source of the bleed."

"Do we have next-of kin for surgical consent?"

"He's a John Doe - nobody from the site of the accident knew him."

"We'll just need to do it without consent - it's an emergency surgery."

"Peritoneal-lavage is positive for blood, let's get him up to the OR now!"

Mulder was wheeled quickly through the ER on his gurney to the elevators by the trauma surgeon and Nurse Jamieson, one of the nurses who had been part of the first response team. As they were waiting for the elevator to arrive, a different nurse hurried over to tell Nurse Jamieson that the police needed a statement from her and that she would take over for her. The doors opened and, seeing the waiting emergency, the only man on it got out hurriedly, moving aside to let them through. Without a glance at the patient on the gurney, the man strode steadily down the hall, whistling happily, glad that his sister was going to be fine and her partner had finally seen sense and left her. The lift doors closed and it began to move upwards, taking the three of them up to the surgical floor. Nurse Winters, having finished going through the chart at the end of the gurney took her first look at her new patient's face and gasped.

"What is it? What's the matter?"

"I know him."

"What do you mean you know him? I thought he was a John Doe - what's his name then?"

"I don't KNOW him, I met him earlier. He'd been crying and he'd hurt his hand."

"Did you get his name? We need to alert the next of kin."

"No, he wouldn't answer me. All he said was that he needed Scully."

"Scully? Who or what's a Scully."

"It's a person, he said he needed 'her' but I don't know who, he didn't say."

"Do you think its a girlfriend, wife?"

"No wedding ring - it's not his wife. He got angry when I tried to ask him about her, and then he just left."

"This is our floor... See if you can track down this 'Scully'."

"Where do I start?"

"Well what do we know? He was coming from 'somewhere' when you met him and he was upset."

"Of course. She's probably a patient here - that's where he was coming from earlier, from visiting her. Even if it's not his 'Scully', there must be someone in the hospital who knows his name, otherwise why would he be here."

"He could have been a patient himself - just been discharged."

"I suppose, but he was walking out, patients should be in a wheelchair. No, I think she must be here somewhere. I'll do my best to track her down. ...What should I tell her if I find her? Is he going to make it?"

"I don't know really. I'll know more when I do the laparotomy and see how bad the bleed is - the head injury could be the worst problem though. It's not looking too good at the moment."

The trauma surgeon passed the gurney to the awaiting OR nurses and went into the scrub room to get ready to perform the surgery. Mulder was taken into the OR and Nurse Winters watched as they began to prep his abdomen for the imminent laparotomy. Shaking her head despondently, she watched for a while and then turned away, ready to start looking to ID him.