Four Attendings and a PA
Disclaimer: NOT MINE, MAKE NO MONEY.
A/N: apologies if the trauma sequence is inaccurate; I'm not a medical professional; I know very little about emergency medicine. I'm doing French, German, sign language and the European Computer Driving Licence at college and working as a receptionist in my optician's, and I want to do a degree in English Literature.
I also apologise for the delay in posting this – my parents FINALLY got a new family computer (we had the old one for 7 ½ years, Windows 95, and it was giving us lots of hassle) but it's taken longer than I anticipated to get hooked up to the Internet.
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Part 5
"Someone want a surgeon?"
"In here, Peter!" Kerry called. "If this guy ever makes it up to the OR."
"What's up?" He pulled on a yellow trauma apron and gloves.
Kerry struggled to intubate. "Bowel's ruptured, ditto for spleen, GCS of six and –"
"Dr. Weaver! We've got a tension pneumo!" Conni called.
"Peritoneal lavage is positive!" Carter added.
"OK. What are his sats?" Benton barked.
"Dropping to eighty-one percent," Conni announced.
The surgeon swore. "This guy's bad." Benton began ordering everyone around, as he usually did.
"Sats now seventy-six percent."
Benton groaned. "Hurry up with that intubation!"
"I can't get the tube in," Kerry snapped, irritated at his impatience.
"Try harder!"
"Let me try," Carter offered. Kerry gladly relinquished the laryngoscope and the tube to him as they swapped places.
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"We need Coburn now!" Mark yelled. "This woman's fifteen weeks pregnant!"
"I'll page her!" Randi shouted back as they headed to Trauma Two.
Within two minutes, Coburn was there. The woman was unconscious, and tubed. Mark had managed to intubate her quite quickly, unlike Kerry, as it had been more straightforward.
The team worked on her, Coburn performing an ultrasound.
"Well? Baby okay?" asked Mark.
Coburn switched off the screen of the monitor. "Yep. Kid seems perfectly intact. Doesn't look like it's harmed at all." She nodded towards Trauma One. "How's the husband?"
"Don't know. You'll have to ask Kerry." He pulled off the gloves. "You want her up in OB?"
"Yeah. I want to keep a close eye on her and the kid, just to make sure they're OK." She left for Trauma One, where the others were working on the husband. It was evidently bad.
"V-fib!" Benton shouted suddenly. "Crash cart!" Conni grabbed the paddles and handed them to him.
"200, charging." The defibrillator whined.
"Charged," Conni called.
"Clear!"
The man's body jerked with the charge.
"Still v-fib!" Kerry called.
The process was repeated several times.
"Asystole," Kerry announced, sounding suddenly tired. "Time of death, 11:48." She was suddenly aware of Coburn in the doorway. "Sorry, Janet."
Coburn pulled a sympathetic face. "You can't win 'em all. Guess I have to tell the wife that her unborn child's fatherless."
"I could do that if you want," Kerry offered, but Coburn had already left.
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"Want to drown your sorrows together?" Robert asked her later. "I lost three patients today." He put a hand on her shoulder and she looked up.
"Sure. That'd be great." She was exhausted, and her voice clearly showed it.
"I know a great place…"
"You know lots of great places." She smiled, in spite of the hard day she'd had.
"I know a lot of people," he corrected her, slipping an arm round her waist. "Old pals from school, college, same hangouts, et cetera." They walked out of the hospital doors, straight past Doug and Carol, although they didn't see them.
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"Targets just left. Didn't see us," Doug reported into a mobile phone. "Headed for Magoo's."
"Received. In position by the door," Jeanie assured him. She glanced at Kerry and nodded. Kerry's blue eyes flicked towards the street. "I can see all four of them," she announced.
"Hear that, Doug?"
"No."
"She can see them and you."
"They're coming in!" Kerry hissed, leaning across the table.
"Keep you posted." Jeanie ended the call and sat back. Romano and Coburn walked in and sat at the bar. Coburn turned round and saw them. "Back in a minute," she said.
Romano nodded and Coburn joined Jeanie and Kerry. "Hi," she said cheerfully.
"How's the pregnant MVA woman doing?" Jeanie asked her, raising her eyebrows at Kerry. Kerry just shrugged.
"Fine, physically. Her husband's death, though. Poor woman. She's devastated."
"We did our best!" Kerry defended herself sharply, flicking her fringe out of her eyes.
Coburn looked up at her, surprised. "Hey, I wasn't saying you didn't!" she replied. "What makes you think I would?"
Kerry shrugged. "Doesn't matter," she muttered. Coburn looked almost hurt, then turned to Jeanie.
"You got a guy, then?" Jeanie asked cheekily, and Coburn blushed, looking down at her hands. "Well, er…kind of, yeah." She nodded shyly at Romano. "Me and, uh, Robert."
"Wow! I'm so happy for you!" Jeanie cried happily, giving Coburn a hug across the table. "So you're the reason he's been so easygoing recently. What d'you make of that, Kerry?"
Kerry shrugged and held her hands up, doing a convincing job of feigning bewilderment. "I honestly don't know."
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A few minutes later, Romano ambled over. "Ready?"
Coburn looked up. "Sure, if you are." She turned to Jeanie. "See ya." As they headed out of the door, she leaned against Romano and he slipped his arm around her waist.
Jeanie and Kerry exchanged raised eyebrow expressions over the rims of their coffee cups.
Doug and Carol chose that moment to come in. Jeanie hastily slipped in next to Kerry. "Well?"
"They're going to one of the posh wine bars. One of my neighbours was complaining about the prices. Apparently a bottle of wine can cost over a hundred dollars! A little out of our league," Doug reported.
"Couldn't be bothered to follow them," Carol added. "But I suspect one thing leads to another…"
"You don't think they've already…?" gasped Jeanie, enjoying herself immensely.
Carol shrugged and grinned wickedly. "It's not unknown. I remember our first date. Doug rang the doorbell, and the next thing I knew, we were on the kitchen floor!" This prompted her, Doug and Jeanie to enter a round of rather loud laughter. Kerry snorted and suppressed the urge to make a snarky comment – admittedly with great difficulty.
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"You ever had anyone special before?" Robert asked, sitting back on the plush velvet-covered seats.
Janet nodded. "Once. His name was Steve. He was in my university class and we dated for three and a half years. Then we went to med school together. I think I'd probably have ended up marrying him." She sighed wistfully.
"But you didn't?" Robert prompted tactfully.
Janet shook her head. "No. We were third-year students, both on our ER rotation. Everything was so ordinary. Then we got news of a major gang shootout. It was bad, really bad." She paused as her voice caught in her throat. This was an extremely painful subject for her.
When she'd regained her composure, she felt able to continue. "One gang leader's older brother came into the ER. His brother had died, see. He demanded to know who had 'let' his brother die. Steve tried to tell him – tried to explain his injuries were too bad." Janet was crying openly now. "Steve hadn't even been treating his brother, but – but he pulled out a gun. He shot Steve, right in the chest, about six times. He didn't stand a chance –" She couldn't go on, and Robert took her in his arms until she could cry no more. "I'm just scared of it happening again, of getting too close…"
"Don't be. I'm not going anywhere."
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TBC