White Noise.
The hospital was chaos when the slight girl on the stretcher was wheeled in. Doctors shouted instructions as they rushed her into surgery. It was still chaos when Harrison and Sam arrived, followed soon after by Mike and Jane. It was only later, as the agonizing minutes turned into hours that a kind of strange calm took over. Perhaps it was just the shock settling in.
The doctors were, frankly, amazed she was alive, and determined to keep her that way, though, in truth, they didn't really hold out much hope. The broken bones were set, the gashes were stitched, but the internal injuries, the damage to the spine, to the brain, this would take longer, if it could be fixed at all.
It was daybreak before a desperate Mike saw an exhausted surgeon walk towards the group that had expanded to include Lily, Josh and Carmen. The police had already come and questioned Sam and Harrison, but they were in too much shock to be of any real use.
"How is she?" Sam was the first to speak, pre-empting Mike.
"She's alive and stable" was the doctor's reply, "though, frankly, I don't know how. She suffered multiple fractures and took a nasty blow to the head."
"Is she going to be okay?" This time Mike got his sentence out before Sam.
The surgeon sighed, "I wish I could tell you, but right now, she's just lucky to be alive." He paused, and added, "there were internal injuries and we'll have to wait for the swelling to go down before we can even tell how extensive the damage to her spine is." He went on about the possibility she'd be paralysed, that there could be brain damage, all the while trying to reassure them that nothing was certain, and reminding them that she'd already exceeded everyone's expectations just by being alive. No one could really focus, their grief overwhelming them.