Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy, or the characters, and chances are that I never will.
A huge thank you everyone who have reviewed and read this fic so far! It really encourages me to keep writing.
Enjoy!
"Miranda?" The senior attending on shift for the ER, Gary Hawker said with a hint of concern, as they moved the gurney into a treatment room and got to work.
"He, he's… Alex, he was an intern of mine, his wife is working upstairs… she needs to know." Bailey said shakily before moving back up to the gurney, she looked Alex over before saying out aloud. "Stat page Torres, Hunt, Shepherd, and someone from cardio-thoratic."
After seeing that a nurse was carrying out her instruction, Bailey leant down over Alex, and fiercely whispered. "I have worked too hard, teaching you, dealing with your adolescent behavior for you to die now, so you just… You need to survive this, Karev. Just hold on."
Within minutes the room had been cleared of interns and paramedics, and the surgeons were working on Alex, trying to stabilize him for transfer to the OR.
"Okay, second chest tube's in, over one thousand cc's out so far. Put up another bag of blood, two of platelets, and one of FFP, we've got to keep up with the blood loss." Dr Victoria Rivett, a cardio-thoratic surgeon of eighteen years, said as she worked, and as a nurse carried out her orders, she turned to Owen, who was examining Alex's arm, which was literally being held on by a small amount of flesh. "Can you save it?"
"Maybe." Owen said. "But we've got to get it on ice, the tissues are already ischemic. Number ten blade." Owen ignored the grimaces and sickened expressions of his colleagues as he severed the tissues that were holding Alex's arm together. After he was done, he instructed a nurse "Keep the bp cuff up until I get back" Before he moved over to a mayo stand, where he put the arm down on a sterile drape.
"How's it look?" Callie asked from where she was assessing the multiple fractures in Alex's legs.
"You're going to have your work cut out for you, Torres, there's at least one fracture, but I think it's still viable." Owen replied as he placed the severed arm into a bag, which was then placed in a bag of saline, and then into an esky filled with ice. He then moved back over to the gurney, to examine the stump.
"This is all well and good guys, but with this epidural bleed, if we don't relieve the pressure it won't matter if he has his arm." Derek pointed out from where he was standing at the head of the gurney. He turned towards a nurse near him. "Set me up for burr holes."
"Damn it, Shepherd, slow down." Bailey said from where she was sitting, holding Alex's hand in amongst the chaos. "Are you sure he needs burr holes? Can't we just move him up to the OR?"
Derek stepped away from where the nursing staff was setting up for the procedure, towards Bailey. "I know you care about Karev, we all do, but this is the only way he is going to survive long enough to get upstairs, he's already having arrhythmias, if I don't do this he'll crash in the elevator."
Bailey quickly wiped away a tear forming in her eye as she replied. "I know, do it."
Derek moved away to wash his hands and prep for the emergency procedure.
Less than a minute later Derek was ready to begin. He offered Bailey a reassuring glance before starting. The surgeons were silent as Derek made an incision in Alex's scalp, just behind his right ear, and then started the surgical drill. The sound of the drill going through their friend's skull was almost too much for the team, but they had to continue, Alex's life was on the line.
There was a collective sigh of relief as Derek stopped the drill, and suctioned out the clotted blood, Alex's heart rate began to stabilize, and Derek packed the surgical wound with gauze as he said. "Okay people, let's get him up to surgery. He's not in the clear just yet."
Dr. Graciella Guzman had been working under Izzie Stevens for just over two years now, although for several months while Izzie had been undergoing treatment she had been reassigned to the trauma service. So when she approached Izzie, who was working at the nurses' station on her charts, Izzie thought nothing of it. "What do you need, Dr Guzman?"
She was panting for the run upstairs in search of Izzie, as she answered. "Dr Bailey needs you in the pit."
"If she needs me, why didn't she just page me?" Izzie asked, not even looking up from her paperwork.
"I don't know, Dr Stevens, they'd just brought in a vic from this pileup on the highway, guy had been trapped for hours, he was a mess. Dr Bailey seemed upset, she yelled at me to come find you."
This got Izzie's attention, it took a lot to get under Bailey's skin. She knew that if Bailey had wanted someone to assist, she would've paged, for her to have sent someone to find her personally… "What's his name?"
"I'm sorry?"
Izzie stood up so that she was standing over her intern, and demanded. "What is the victims' name?!"
Dr Guzman hesitated for a moment, trying to remember the name the paramedics had said. "Um, it was Alexander Karev, I think."
Before the young intern knew what was happening, Izzie had pushed her out of the way and was running towards the stairs.
Izzie reached the ER just as the surgeons were preparing to move Alex to surgery. She ran into the treatment room, only to stop dead in her tracks when she saw her husband lying on the gurney, both his legs in temporary splints, draped with bloodied moist gauze, chest tubes running out of both sides of his chest, a surgical drill not far from his head and a gauze dressing just behind his ear, and finally her gaze fell to his left arm, or what was left of it. Before she could stop herself she cried out in horror.
"Oh god! Alex!"
This got the surgeons attention very quickly, they exchanged a glance between each other before Bailey moved away from the group, towards her former intern. "Izzie…"
"Is he going to live?" Izzie asked, in a state of shock.
Bailey tried to sound comforting as she said. "You know I can't tell you that, Izzie. But we're doing everything we can."
"We've got to move." Owen reminded everyone.
Bailey started to move back towards the gurney, only to have Izzie grab the sleeve of her trauma gown. "Please save him." Izzie said pleadingly before letting go and watching the team rush her husband out of the room towards the OR.
As Bailey stood over Alex, who lay draped on the operating table, she paused, and moved closer to his head. And she whispered to him. "I have five interns, you make five that I've had on this table, one of you is dead, another has cancer, don't even try to pull anything on me, Karev."
The other surgeons had of course heard her, but said nothing as she sat down on a stool beside the operating table, and took Alex's hand once again, he shouldn't be alone through this. They each then began their part of the massive task of rebuilding Alex's damaged body.
Izzie didn't know how long she stood there in the treatment room before a nurse came into the room, and gently guided her upstairs to the surgical waiting area, it could have been minutes, or hours, she had no idea. Her thoughts were consumed by the single thought of. Oh god, please don't let him die.
It mustn't have been long though, because within minutes of Izzie sitting down in the waiting area, Christina and Meredith came running in.
Meredith was the first to reach Izzie. "Bailey just paged me, she said that Alex was in surgery, what happened? Are you okay?"
"There was an accident, Callie, Owen, Derek, and Bailey are operating. I don't know… It was… Oh god." Izzie said, haunted by the image in her mind of Alex lying there.
"Oh, oh god." Meredith whispered in shock, it had only been a month since George's death, could things get worse? She sat down beside Izzie.
"Oh crap." Cristina muttered, also feeling the shock as she sat down on Izzie's other side.
It was four hours before Callie emerged from the OR, she was still wearing her theatre gear, as she went over to where Izzie and the others were waiting, she sat down opposite them before telling them. "He's still in surgery, it's going to be a while before we finish, but I just wanted to come let you know how things are going. I've finished my first part of the surgery to stabilize his fractured sternum, and I'm about halfway through placing pins and plates to put his leg fractures back in alignment. Shepherd is doing a craniotomy, Dr Rivett is working on repairing a tear in his heart from the sternal fracture, and Hunt is attempting a replantation on his arm. At the moment Alex is extremely critical, but stable. It will be a while before we know anything definitive, but I wanted to give you an update."
TBC...
So, how was that?
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