Secrets of the Lake Chapter 2
The ambulance got closer and closer, and finally, it was there. Doctors and nurses ran out of the car and pushed through the throngs of people to get to Spencer. They saw Jake attempting CPR and right when they saw him, he shouted, "She's breathing!" He then saw the nurses and doctors and moved out of the way to let the doctors check up on her.
One doctor held his hand to her wrist. "Her breathing is slow, but we have a pulse!"
The rest of his crew started to load Spencer onto a gurney and roll her into the ambulance. The doctor looked around for Jake, who was busy consoling Aria as she watched her best friend being loaded into an ambulance.
"Thank you, young man. If you hadn't performed CPR, she would be dead right now."
Emily started crying harder at that. The doctor took off in the ambulance.
Jake and Paige started bringing their girlfriends over to Jake's car. It was obvious that Jake would be driving the three girls over to the hospital to avoid a car accident.
"Em," Paige cleared her throat. "You should call Toby… and tell him…"
Emily's eyes widened. "Of course," she murmured, "he will be so devastated…"
Emily took out her phone and scrolled through her contacts looking for Toby. She pressed on the button to call him, put the phone to her ear and took a deep breath.
"Hello?" Toby answered sleepily. Emily looked at the time. 11:00 PM. Huh. Woops.
"Toby? It's Em…"
"Hey Em, is everything ok? It's 11:00 and I've had a huge day at work…"
"Toby, Spencer's in the hospital," she blurted out, the tears starting again.
"WHAT?!" she heard him exclaim. He was definitely awake now.
"She… We were at my party and she was going to set up the fireworks, or at least that's what Aria told me, and she didn't come back for a while, so we went to look for her, and we found her in the lake, and she wasn't breathing!"
Emily heard Toby rushing around his room, probably changing to meet them at the hospital. "Is she… is she alive?" he asked, sounding a little nervous.
"Yeah, for now," Emily sighed, throwing an appreciative glance to Jake. "Jake was able to do CPR and he got her breathing again."
"Tell Jake a million times thank you. God, where are my keys!"
"Toby, we'll pick you up."
"Thank you so much Em, just get here soon," he sounded on the verge of tears.
"We'll be there in 5."
She promptly hung up so that she could give Jake the directions to get to Toby's loft. They were there in four minutes, not that she was counting or anything… Toby was already outside the door, tears streaming down his face. Emily reached across Aria and opened the door for Toby. Aria moved over to the middle of the car and Toby slid in beside her. Jake and Paige were sitting up front.
As soon as Toby got in and closed the door, Jake sped off in the direction of the hospital. Toby put his head in his hands and Aria put a comforting arm around him, since she was closer to him than Emily was.
They spent the rest of the ride in silence. Once they got to the hospital, Jake dropped them off at the front, telling them to go without him, and he would find a parking space and get in as soon as he could. The four rushed inside, immediately going to the receptionist's desk.
"Hi, we were just wondering where Spencer Hastings's room is?"
"Are you family?" the receptionist asked. "We only tell family."
"I'm her sister," a new voice said. The four turned around in shock and saw Melissa Hastings standing in front of them. Their eyes widened in shock.
"Your name?" the receptionist asked.
"Melissa Hastings."
"Relationship to the patient?"
"I'm her sister!" Melissa exclaimed, getting fed up with all the questions.
"I'm going to have to see some I.D."
"Well I left my purse at home! Do you actually expect a girl to grab her purse and wallet when she gets a phone call from the hospital telling her that her sister drowned that night?"
"I'm sorry, we can't let anybody without I.D. to see any patients."
"Listen here, woman," Melissa lowered her voice and leaned across the receptionist's desk. "My parents are the founders of a major law firm. I don't think they would appreciate it if they found out that I was denied to see my sister. So either tell us what room she is in, or we will sue you for everything you own."
That was obviously enough for the receptionist to say that Spencer was in Room 611, and the five friends/family rushed over to the elevator to get to the 6th floor. The ride up was agonizingly slow. When they finally got there, they rushed to room 611.
A doctor was walking out of there with a solemn expression on his face. He saw the five walking over. "You must be family," he said to them. "I'm Dr. Chris, Ms. Hastings's doctor."
"What's going on?" Melissa asked, her voice quivering.
The doctor hesitated. "We aren't exactly sure… we do now that she drowned, and we do now that there was quite a bit of a struggle."
"How do you know?" Paige asked, looking very alarmed.
"There are a couple scratched on her forehead, meaning that someone was holding her underwater and she was trying to fight it. But what really made up believe that there was someone else there was the fact that she was a bit… drugged."
"What?" Aria asked.
"She… When whoever it was took her to the lake, they were holding a rag or something of the sort over her mouth, and we believe she breathed in the drugs and/or chemicals on the rag. That would make her fighting significantly weaker, but she did have enough strength to try and fight her attacker."
Melissa's hands flew over her mouth. "Oh my…" she trailed off, not really sure of what she should say. "Will she… will she be okay?"
The doctor shrugged. "We will know more about that if she wakes up."
"If?" Jake asked, just coming through the elevators. He explained to Toby, "I told the receptionist I was with you guys, and she let me up."
The doctor looked like he was trying to figure out how to phrase his next words. "Ms. Hastings was hit in the head with a heavy object, and we are currently trying to figure out what it was. But we don't know if the force that she was hit with affected her brain in any way. We still have to run some tests, but that will be a little after the medicine sinks in."
"Can we… see her?" Toby asked in a small voice.
The doctor hesitated. "Only one of you may."
"Go," Melissa said to Toby.
"Are you sure?" he asked. Of course he wanted to go.
"Yes. She would want to see you anyway."
Toby then rushed into the room. His heart almost stopped as he saw the girl he loved hooked up to different machines and wires. He gently pulled a chair next to her bed and watched her try to take a shaky breath.
"Come on, Spence," he whispered. "You could do this. I believe in you. I love you."
A doctor walked into the room and Toby took that as a hint that he had to come back later. He placed a small kiss to his girlfriend's forehead and got up to leave.
The night of Paige's party, Spencer was just walking around, looking for fireworks, when all of a sudden a person grabbed her from behind, and tied a rag around her mouth. Her eyes widened, and she flailed around, trying to get out of this person's grip. She tried to breathe, and almost gagged at the smell. Whoever it was was drugging her. He/She dragged her to the lake. She widened her eyes as she realized what the person was doing. They threw her into the lake and she struggled to stay afloat, but the person shoved her head underwater, and kept it there. She still struggled. She felt the person's nails dig into her forehead as she struggled. For that one spectacular moment she was allowed to breathe, she saw a blurry figure who she could barely make out. But she finally did, and she couldn't believe it! It was… Her thoughts were cut short as she felt something hard hit her head. And then everything went black.
She passed out and she could argue that she had died. But she wasn't dead, she knew that. She heard slow beeping all around her, and she heard Emily and Aria screaming at the doctors to get them to help her. She felt Toby's hand slipping into hers at one point. She heard everything he said… "Come on, Spence, you could do this. I believe in you. I love you." He then placed a small kiss on her forehead and she heard the chair moving as he stood up. All of a sudden, Spencer shot up in bed, her eyes wide open. She started coughing a lot. Toby immediately back into the room. "What… what's going on?" he asked.
Spencer tried looking around, but her eyesight was completely black. She blinked multiple times before her eyesight finally cleared up. She saw four doctors in front of her, two of them fiddling with different wires connected to her, one preparing medicine, and another started to gently ask questions.
"Spencer. Can you hear and see me?"
She nodded, hoping that was a good enough response.
"Dr. Green over there, he's the doctor preparing medicine. It will help stop the coughing. Just lay back down and relax, and the medicine will start to work immediately."
Spencer followed the doctor's instructions, she didn't care what they had to do, as long as they made it stop. She felt like she was going to cough up a lung.
The doctor, the one called Dr. Green, came over and inserted a needle into her left forearm. She immediately winced. No, it didn't hurt, but Spencer had always hated needles. Once all the medicine was injected, Dr. Green gently removed the needle and her coughing slowed down and eventually stopped.
The nurse that was assigned to Spencer's room, Nurse Finn, asked Spencer if she would mind answering a couple questions. Spencer shook her head no, and Toby came up from behind and gently sat down next to her, grabbing a hold of her cold hand.
The first question Nurse Finn asked was, "Can you talk?"
Spencer tried talking again, but she couldn't. She shook her head no.
Nurse Finn jotted something down on her clipboard. Spencer felt her eyes closing, feeling the need to fall back into a deep sleep. She closed her eyes but Nurse Finn said, "Ms. Hastings. Just a couple more minutes, and then we will give you something to help you sleep. Right now, we just need you to cooperate. Can you do that?"
Spencer nodded and opened her eyes.
Nurse Finn instructed, "Now, take 20 deep breaths for me."
Spencer tried doing as she was told, but as she tried to exhale the first breath, she found she was unable to breathe. It was like she was stuck. She started hyperventilating, trying to get oxygen to enter her lungs.
"What's going on?" Toby asked worriedly.
Nurse Finn couldn't answer at the moment, she was busy trying to call a doctor in.
Toby fought the urge to groan. Of course it had to be their luck they got an assistant nurse during this. It was obvious she was an assistant because she was wearing pink scrubs instead of green like the nurses did. The doctors wore blue.
One of the doctors from before came rushing into the room. He quickly prepared an injection. No, no more needles, Spencer thought, even though she knew it was necessary. After the injection, the doctor placed an oxygen mask gently over her mouth. She promptly drifted off to sleep.
"What was that?" Toby demanded.
Nurse Finn excused herself and left the room.
"A lot of water entered your girlfriend's lungs when she was forced underwater. This water in the lungs can cause cardiac pulmonary edema, which can sometimes lead to respiratory distress and in certain cases, death," Dr. Chris explained.
"What happens in respiratory distress?
"Respiratory distress basically refers to having difficulty in breathing. Unfortunately, it seems that Ms. Hastings might have trouble breathing for the rest of her life. We will have to address that problem when she wakes up again. There is nothing we could do about it now."
Toby nodded his head, taking it all in.
Dr. Chris said to Toby, "I'll be back tomorrow. There will be a few doctors on night duty. We will have to move Ms. Hastings to the ICU just incase she can't breathe again. The doctor's will be at her side in a quick second if you press the red button that will be next to the bed."
Toby nodded, standing up as a couple assistant nurses came in and moved the bed out of the room and into the elevator, where Toby went also. They went to the next floor up, and the nurses and Toby walked into Room 763. The positioned Spencer's bed by the window, and, as Dr. Chris said, there was a red button next to the bed. The nurses quickly left and closed the door.
Toby sighed and took hold of Spencer's limp hand in his. He sat back and pulled out the book he had with him, The Catcher in the Rye in French, L'attrape-coeurs. Spencer got him that book when she first started tutoring him. Smiling, Toby turned the page to Chapter 1 and began reading, taking his eyes off the text every few minutes to look at Spencer sleeping peacefully.
Well there's Chapter 2! Review please!
~A