"How are we going to tell her?" That was Elmer and he definitely sounded upset about something. Chris furrowed her brow trying to figure out what might be bothering the younger doctor. Surely if anything major had happened during the night, Hook would have called her. She hated that they hadn't been able to spend the evening together but if she didn't spend a bit of time at home, trying to catch up on household chores, she suspected the entire place would fall apart soon. Maybe that was why Hook lived in the hospital basement, so he wouldn't have to worry about boring things like cleaning or doing laundry? Chris laughed softly at the thought as she entered the staff room.
Immediately it hit her that something was wrong. Everyone stopped talking the second that she appeared and Elmer was staring at her with a rather frightened expression on his face.
"What's going on?" Chris asked, glancing around the room for Hook.
He wasn't there though and neither was Stegman, just Louis, Lona and
Elmer. "Where is everyone? Did Stegman botch another operation or
something?"
"Sort of?" Elmer said, before burying his face in his hands, very sure he had just said the wrong thing.
"Ignore him." Louis said as he shot a look at his son. Okay, they really had a bad feeling that Stegman had botched things seriously this time but they didn't need to alarm Chris too much yet. There was always a chance that things would be just fine. Louis grimaced slightly as he thought that. Chances things would be fine were probably one in a million.
"Chris, I think you need to sit down." Lona said gently. How in the world were they ever going to tell her? Why had she chosen last night to run those tests on Elmer, making sure that Stegman would be the only doctor nearby when.... She bit her lip, trying to get control of herself once more.
"What is going on?" Why was everyone acting so strange? Chris looked at each of them in turn trying to figure out what had happened that seemed to have everyone so upset. "Would someone just tell me what is going on here? Where is everyone? Where's Hook?"
"Chris, Hook had a little accident last night." Louis said gently.
"It was Johnny." Elmer added. "He decided to do his job for a change and waxed the floors all nice and shiny. The bad part was that he waxed them right outside of one of the trauma rooms right before a major case came in."
"Okay." Chris had a feeling that she knew what they were going to tell her next. Hook had obviously come rushing to help and had taken a spill. But how badly could a fall on the ER floor hurt him. "Where is he?" Did he break something? She didn't know why they would be so upset about a broken bone but.... It was a good thing she had cleaned up last night. She could take him home with her and look after him. "Where is he?" she asked again when no one answered her. "Come on, a fall on the floor couldn't do too much damage. What did he do?"
"Well, the fall probably wouldn't have done much more than bruised him pretty good." Louis said with a grimace. "You know the cabinet in Trauma Two, the one where the door's always loose? Well, Johnny was apparently very inspired last night because he decided to try his hand at fixing it. The problem was that he somehow undid the bolts holding it to the wall while he was working and when Hook fell, he hit the cabinet."
Okay. Obviously the cabinet had fallen onto him. Chris's mind rapidly ran back to the trauma room, assessing cabinet size and the damage it could have possibly done. Okay, something more than a simple broken bone but the cabinet wasn't excessively big. "Where is he?" she asked once more.
"The cabinet falling onto him wouldn't have been such a big problem except when it came down, the door fell off completely and hit him in the head, Chris." Lona said gently.
"What?" How heavy were those doors? She didn't think they were
very heavy but.... "Where IS he?" She didn't want to know anything else,
not until she saw Hook, saw for sure that he was okay.
"Chris, you need to stay calm now, okay?" Louis told her as he
stood, walking to the young woman's side and putting an arm around her
shoulders. "From what I heard from Liz, Hook got knocked out when the door
hit him but the damage didn't look too serious, a mild concussion, maybe.
The problem was that Stegman was the only neurologist available when it
happened and he made the call to do surgery."
"Surgery? What idiot let Stegman....." No, no, no! This couldn't be happening! She suddenly had a horrifying feeling what she was about to be told. "He isn't.... Please...." Tears started running down her cheeks as she thought of it. She couldn't lose Hook now! She just couldn't!
"We don't know exactly what went on during the surgery but Hook's up in ICU right now." Louis continued gently. "He's in a coma, Chris, and I'm really sorry but things just don't look good."