all that matters
part two
Meanwhile, at the nearest hospital, Grey Sloan Memorial, they'd just received the call from the paramedics that responded to the accident. All they'd got from the situation was that there was a RTA and two patients were being brought in with major trauma; a male and a female; the latter being 38 weeks pregnant.
"There's a trauma coming in on the roof." Dr. Owen Hunt, Head of Trauma Surgery, politely yelled, or rather screamed, at everyone gathering around. He was Ex-Army so shouting was normal for him, but the residents still hadn't got used to anyone yelling that loud.
"Grey, Robbins, Shepherd, I need you!" He yelled some more, staring at the three doctors he'd just called out. The Head of General Surgery, Dr. Meredith Grey, the Head of Foetal and Paediatric Surgery, Dr. Arizona Robbins, and the Head of Neurosurgery, Dr. Amelia Shepherd.
"It's got to be bad if he needs all three of them", the residents whispered as they began gossiping like teenage girls, all pushing past each other trying to peek at the trauma victims, gawking at the injuries they'd sustained, as they were being wheeled into Trauma 1 and Trauma 2 respectively.
But he wasn't done either.
"Pierce, Torres, Webber, Kepner! I need you too!" He shouted out of Trauma One to a group of doctors gathering outside Trauma 2. Dr. Maggie Pierce, Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Dr. Callie Torres, Head of Orthopaedic Surgery, Dr. Richard Webber, another General Surgeon and Dr. April Kepner, a fellow Trauma Surgeon of Dr. Hunt's. Him picking all the trauma heads of departments at were needed set off alarm bells in each individual residents' head that this was a serious case that they reallywouldn't want to miss on.
"Pierce, Webber, Torres, Shepherd and I will take him. Robbins, Grey, Kepner, take the woman! Quick!" He clamoured so almost the whole hospital could hear. It seemed that his favourite thing to do was shout.
They were treating him in Trauma 1. He'd been brought in with a query fractured pelvis, broken femur, tibia and fibula, a tension pneumothorax in his right lung which the paramedics had decompressed on their way to the hospital, and traumatic head and abdominal injuries. Just from looking at him, the doctors could tell that he must have gone through the windshield or something like that because these were extremely serious injuries and he would have a long recovery ahead of him.
"Torres, are you alright?' Owen looked at Callie, who was trying not to cry, shaking with fear. She froze, unable to formulate a single thought. She shuddered, standing over him, knowing that she was next door.
"Torres?" The ghastly memories from her own past circulated around her mind, constantly, not stopping, as if they were cars on a never-ending racetrack, emitting fear and more thoughts and memories from that day. She envisaged herself there, in the trauma room, in the operating room, in recovery, and every single second of that was complete and utter pain and worry. She longed for her daughter, yearned to hold her in her arms. She felt so sorry for that woman; she was probably going to end up the same as she did. It's not the surgeries, but the waiting, the not knowing if she or the other person was going to survive, that's what kills you. Callie felt so sorry for her. That woman…she didn't know if she was going to make it. She didn't know if he was going to make it. She didn't know if her daughter was going to make it, just as she had done with her daughter Sofia. And her daughter, Sofia, she'd already lost her father. She couldn't let this woman's child looe her father too. She wanted to go to that woman and tell her to wait and tell her everything was okay but as a medical professional in this situation, she just couldn't do that. She had to swipe all her feelings to the side and work her absolute hardest as a doctor to save this man's life. And that's what she was going to do; she had her mind set on it.
"Yes, sorry. I'm fine." She replied, wiping the small number of tears that had formed under her eyes from her face. It wasn't often that she cried; the toll tears took on her was insufferable; she hated crying, hated being perceived as weak. She was a doctor; she couldn't be weak. She adjusted her hair and put on gloves and began examining his injuries.
"That's a broken right tib-fib and left femur", she continued, inspecting his pelvic injuries, "the pelvis is broken but not bad enough for a complete reconstruction", she walked forward now, towards his arms, "I'd say a broken left radius too, and that's all that I could see visually. He'll need some X-Rays but I think that can wait if there's more pressing issues."
They ordered a plethora of tests as the other doctors examined his other internal injuries.
"He needs a CT Chest and Abdomen, quick!" Richard and Maggie said, almost in sync. Like father, like daughter, they say.
"He needs a Head CT, now!" Amelia stood at his head, using her torch to carefully inspect and examine what she could of his obvious head injury, trying not to aggravate it further than it already was. She was perhaps the most affected by this; her brother had died of a neurological injury sustained in a car crash; the doctors had not taken him for a Head CT and he died. This man in the trauma room right now imitated Derek's injuries and it made her uneasy. What's worse, was that he was a neurosurgeon too, and since the death of their father, one of her biggest inspirations to stay clean, one of her biggest inspirations to become a neurosurgeon like she was now. Ever since then, she'd vowed to herself never to let a patient die in that manner, never let a brother, father, husband, be taken away from their family like that ever again.
"Is he stable enough for that many scans though?" Maggie interrupted, gaining a stare of disgust from Amelia. Maggie knew of her feelings on the matter, and she felt like that was just plain apathetic rudeness. Maggie glanced at Amelia, and without looking at her expression for long, backed down and lifted the railing at the side of the bed and began wheeling him to CT.
The images popped up on the screens in the CT room and blank faces spread all around as the doctors examined the injuries he had sustained. The residents again were gawking, congregating outside the room where the doctors were viewing the scans, pushing against each other to try and get the best view. The residents hated being excluded but understood why; this was sucha big case.
A depressed skull fracture, coupled with both an epidural and subdural bleed, coupled with his previous traumatic brain injury; he didn't have a good shot at coming out of surgery alive. But she had to try. She had to try and save him. She couldn't let him die like her brother did.
A grade three liver laceration was all they could see at first. But upon closer inspection, they discovered Abdominal Compartment Syndrome, or ACS for short. They could have waited if it were just for the liver laceration but due to the latter injury they had to operate now or his whole body would start failing, crumbling right in front of their eyes, while they sat and did nothing.
He also had a flash pulmonary oedema and traumatic ventricular septal defect, or TVSD. They marvelled over how he was still alive in such a critical condition. They didn't have time to make up a surgical plan; they had to do it right then and there. They had to intubate him and take him up to surgery immediately.
"I don't know about this, Dr Hunt." Richard sighed, defeated.
"I know. But we should try. You know that." Owen retorted. He knew too that they had to save him. For her.
"We never objected to trying, Owen." Amelia interjected. "So let's just go already". She huffed and walked into the CT room where they were just getting him out of the scanner, having already intubated him. She took two steps into the room when the heart monitor started beeping like crazy, and the three doctors behind him came rushing in.
"He's in SVT at 140!" Amelia checked the monitor and with the help of the others got him back onto the bed and began wheeling him to the OR.
"We need to get him into surgery now!" All three doctors behind her simultaneously screamed. They understood that all their problems needed addressing immediately and so they all decided to operate at the same time, despite the risks that come with that. It was his only chance and it was what they had to do.
"I realised!" She sarcastically yelled back, scrubbing in as the anaesthesiologist inside OR 1 sedated him. She prayed for him to be alright, to not turn out like her brother did, like Derek did. They all did. They weren't losing him. Not yet.