Title: Ch. 2: Trauma
Author: Jen Zoromski
All other information is in first chapter.
Enjoy!
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February 11, 2004
County General Hospital
Gossip flies fast when a child of their former boss happens to turn up. By the next shift everyone knew. Ethan's no nonsense attitude and his uncanny resemblance to his father put them all on edge.
Late on the second day of his ER rotation a trauma rolls through the door. Vehicle vs. pedestrian.
"Ethan, you're with me on this one," Susan yells over her shoulder.
Ethan watches as a woman with a deep head laceration starts to vomit blood.
"Roll her!" Susan orders as the nurses move the woman.
"Mr. 'Hot-shot' here's your first trauma – care to join?"
His face turns ashen white as he shakes his head, "Not this case."
Before Susan can say anything or to inform him that he doesn't get to pick what cases he wants to work on and which ones he doesn't he's already out the door. So much for having the nerves of steel like the other Romano who once worked here. Although who knows what he may have been like when he was younger. A small grin is on Susan's face as she tries to picture a very young Robert Romano running like hell away from a trauma. It probably happened more than once in his first year.
Ethan on the other hand has found his way out the door and into the ambulance bay. The brisk February weather burns his lungs as he tries to slow his breathing down. He can't start panicking now – it may ruin his reputation.
"Reputation," he mutters under his breath. All he's heard about over the last 48 hours or so is how his father had a reputation that no one wanted to divulge in. Even when Dr. Weaver – Chief of Staff saw him she thought that his father had come back for revenge on her in the form of a very young and abled man – he laughed at the thought of this woman believing in such ideas.
Minutes later the cold, nipping air gets to him and he heads back into the lounge – still shaken.
"Hey Red," Frank starts.
"Not now!" he grumbles pushing the lounge door open.
At first the lounge seems quiet – almost too quiet. A safe haven from the world outside those doors – one which Ethan could have easily dealt with, but not a case like that.
Not this early.
The lounge door swings open.
"Crackers work wonders," Susan says sarcastically.
"I'm not queasy."
"Well then what the hell was that about?"
"I'd rather not talk about it."
"Look – I know that you think you have to be a tough guy – but getting sick is understandable on your first trauma. It's just how you deal with it. You either let your emotions get to you or you don't."
"It won't happen again," he mutters quietly, almost embarrassed by what happened.
Susan turns to leave.
"What was my dad like?" Ethan asks softly.
"Truthfully?"
"Yeah."
"A pain in the ass. I didn't know him that well, though."
"But you worked with him during the last months."
"He wasn't the same. Dr. Romano was a bitter man. Bitter at the fact that he was placed in a job in the ER and no one down here was willing to respect him," she pauses, "You know just a year before he ran this hospital. He always had an extremely vicious and wry sense of humor, but during those last days I wouldn't have wanted to have been in his situation either."
"What was he like before the accident?"
"That's something I'd ask Dr. Corday about."
"Dr. Corday?"
"She's a surgeon who worked with your dad for six years."
Ethan stands abruptly, "Well enough with the tears – let's go save lives."
"Now that's the spirit."
Ethan headed back out into the bright ER ready to work and learn. Pushing into the depths of his memory is the reason he ran away from the trauma – the same reason he became a doctor:
His mother's death.
TBC
xxxxx
More to come! Please R&R
Jen