CHAPTER TWO
If there was one thing Richard 'Rusty' Kite hated, it was working on soldiers. He'd done a stint as an Army medic back in Vietnam, and while things stateside were a vast improvement over what he'd had to deal with there, he still saw the same kinds of injuries sometimes, and it took him back to a time he tried to forget. As an attending doctor in a busy emergency room these days, Rusty saw his share of brutalized human bodies, and most were civilians now, but sometimes a soldier still came his way, and when he knew his patient was someone who was serving, their injuries affected him just a little bit more. The woman in front of him didn't look like a soldier, but he knew that she was, and he was all the more determined to save her because of it.
"Get me a surgical consult STAT. Full chems and rads. Let's go, people. I want this woman upstairs within ten minutes. Find me a surgeon and a room. Now!"
He didn't need to order his team to do any of this. The well trained nurses zipped around like flies over a choice piece of offal, and they knew their jobs. The barely contained chaos resulted in full body films of the patient within minutes. More tubes were put in more places, and a surgeon in green scrubs flew onto the scene like a whirlwind just the last x-rays were coming up on the digital monitors that recorded them.
"What's the verdict, Rusty?" The surgeon, Dr. Youngblood, asked with interest.
"Looks like multiple pelvic fractures, the right femur, the left tibia…legs are trashed. Nothing that can't wait, though, from the looks of it…at least for a bit. Biggest worry is the belly. I think we have a bleed. Probably splenic. Rads aren't diagnostic, but ultrasound shows a probable gusher. Lots of fluid in there. Tap is straight blood. Chest is fine, oddly enough, at this point. Contusions, but nothing too serious. Breathing fine. Skull appears to be intact. Can't tell if there's a bleed there or not without CT, but that will take some time. Patient is unconscious, not anesthetized, at this point."
The surgeon looked over at the gurney at just that moment. "Um…Rust…not quite."
At that moment, Samantha Carter decided to make an attempt at waking up. She stirred. Immediately, a nurse was at her side, laying firm but gentle hands on her shoulders.
Strong dark hands held Carter down as she moved her head side to side and tried to get her bearings. The nurse leaned into Carter's face and spoke clearly to her patient. "Ma'am, do you know your name? Do you know where you are?"
It was slow in coming, but a response came. Sam's eyes focused on the nurse for just a second, and she answered. "Ca…Carter. Wrecked the bike."
"We're lucid, doctors!"
Dr. Youngblood didn't need anything more to go on for now. "Good. Prep her for surgery and get her upstairs. OR 3 just cleared. We need to cut her now or we'll lose her from hemorrhage. Get me an orthopod for a consult, and get an in-suite radiology team up there for further imaging. We're going to need it. Get 3 units of type specific blood on standby."
With only those terse orders, the surgeon quickly turned and headed to an elevator, knowing full well that by the time he changed, scrubbed, and otherwise prepared for surgery, his patient would be waiting for him in an operating room.
XXX
Several hours later, a woman was rolled into the trauma ICU. She was pale and her abdomen sported a long surgical incision closed with staples, making her look like she was wearing a sort of human suit with a zipper in the front, but she was alive. She would wake after several more hours of sleep, and would find out her ordeal was just beginning. She and the TICU staff would get to know each other very well over the next few weeks.