Destroy (A Standalone Romance Novel) (13 page)

So, the morning was
dedicated entirely
to
visiting patients who would
undergo surgery in the next twenty-four hours. For most of them, there was no
turning back–they had to go under the knife.

Jeff demonstrated
impeccable bedside manners, although I found him a little terse when it came to
explain what was going to happen in the operating theater. He later told us
that an operating theater is and has to remain a place where surgeons, doctors
and nurses are working diligently to restore wellbeing into a patient. It is
not a place of worship; not a place for discussion; not a place to be decorated
or furnished with unnecessary encumbrances. In other words, it’s a sanctuary, a
sacred room where only a few are admitted.

We were reaching the last
of the patients to be visited when suddenly the PA system called all doctors to
the emergency lobby. That meant trouble. Something had happened somewhere and
injured patients were coming in, in droves.

We ran to the front of
the hospital on the ground floor to be met with a sight I never hoped to see in
my entire life. A dozen gurneys were lined up against the one wall with an
injured child laying in each of them. I froze. The sight horrified me. One of
the EMTs replied to my query, saying, “There was a school bus accident on I5–a
semi jack-knifed and collided with the bus; five kids killed and about thirty
others injured.”

Oh
God,
I prayed silently,
give
me the strength.

But there wasn’t any time
for prayers. Dr. Kerry was heading the triage in the lobby and writing a chart
for each child. We were assigned three kids per intern and Jeff, as well as a
few other doctors, supervised the lot or went down to the dungeon to perform
emergency surgery on those little bodies.

I had never witness such
pain first hand. It had been a book I did not want to open. It had been
something at the back of my mind that I didn’t want to discuss with anyone.

Stabilizing their
conditions was primordial. Before any care can be given to an injured adult or
child, a doctor needs to stabilize the patient, meaning that all their vital
signs need to come back to normal before we can treat them. When it comes to kids,
there is an added dimension to the problem. A mother or father’s attention, a hug
or kisses, are often the only things that will return the child’s vital signs
to normal. In this instance, however, I didn’t have the luxury of having mom or
dad’s assistance when it came to the kids I was to look after. The first and
only bruised little boy suffered a concussion, whereas his two friends were
badly injured. I told the nurse to take the concussed boy to the children’s
ward and admit him for a day, under observation.

The little girl who was
bleeding from her right leg was unconscious. I could not offer her any comfort,
but I asked the nurse to clamp the wound until I would have time to close it
with some stitches. In the meantime, she was put on an I.V. while she regained
consciousness. She was going to be okay.

While the nurse was
attending to the little girl, I had my eyes on her brother’s injury. Some sort
of nail had pierced his liver–he was bleeding to death. Exsanguinations kill
more people than many other injuries. I had to get him on an operating table,
get that nail out of his abdominal cavity, and stop the bleeding. As the
nurses’
aids
and I were running down the hall in the
dungeon, trying to reach an operating theater, the boy began coughing blood. I
knew it was the end. I stopped everyone and took the little guy into my arms.
He was dying and I could not save him. I hadn’t been fast enough. I saw life
leave his eyes while a silent prayer went up to God to take care of his little
soul.

As if frozen in the
moment, I couldn’t let go of him until the nurse pulled him out of my arms. I
looked down at myself. I was covered in his blood. I was choking. I tried
holding back the sobs that were menacing to burst forth. I couldn’t. I slammed
my back against the wall, sunk down to the floor while the nursing staff took
the gurney directly to the morgue.

As I was sobbing my heart
out, Jeff came out of an operating theater and rushed to my side.

“What happened?” he
asked, pulling me up by one arm. “You need to get washed up…”

“I need to get out of
here,” I blurted, enraged at my incapacity to save the boy. I was still
sobbing.

“Come with me,” he
ordered, taking me by the arm again. I was stubbornly standing my grounds and
looking at my blotchy lab coat, my bloody gloves and the floor–I was still
dripping with his blood. “No use looking at it, Heather. Let’s get you washed
up,” Jeff insisted, gripping my arm tightly.
 

“I can do that by myself,”
I said, walking beside him now. “Maybe you should go back upstairs; they’re
bound to need all the helping hands they can get.”

“They’ve got all the help
they need, I’m sure. Besides, you’re the one who needs help right now.”

When we reached the scrub
room, a couple of doctors came out of the theater and threw a glance at me.
They lowered their gazes. “It’s a mess upstairs,” Jeff commented by way of an
explanation for my blood-covered coat, face and gloves.

Jeff helped me out of my
lab coat, threw it in the laundry cart and stood beside me as I washed myself.
As I saw the blood going down the drain, I broke down again. I couldn’t erase
the boy’s face from my mind. He had died in my care. And I had been unable to
be fast enough to save him.

“Are you going to tell me
what happened now?” Jeff said, as he turned me to face him, and away from the
basin.

“It’s one of the boys in
the bus,” I began, avoiding his gaze. “I failed him. I managed to save his
sister. She only had a nasty gash on her leg, but her brother, I could not save
him. He bled to death. I wasn’t fast enough.”

“Do you remember what Dr.
Clemens told you on your first day in the dungeon?”

“I can’t really remember
exactly but he said…”

“That “
If God decides it’s time for this human
being to leave this earth, there is nothing anyone of us can do. Right or
wrong, the life of that patient is in your hands until God decides otherwise
”.
You need to remember these words every day of your career, Heather. You cannot
break down every time you lose a patient. You cannot control destiny.”

He handed me a clean
towel from the nearby pile on the shelves.

I took it and dried my
hands and face. Fortunately, there were also a couple of clean lab coats in one
of the open closets. He handed me one.

“I don’t know if you
understand how I feel, Jeff. I feel as if I could not reach him in time. He
fell down the precipice and I wasn’t strong enough to keep him from falling.
The worst part was when I saw him die. If only I could have taken that nail out
of his side, maybe I could have saved him.”

“Probably not, Heather. You
know as well as I do that once a patient, especially a child, has lost too much
blood, there’s no coming back from it. Besides, you’ll learn that you will not
be able to save everyone.”

He sounded callous,
unfeeling,
almost
cold. I hated him for it.

“Okay,” he went on,
“let’s get you back upstairs. You’ve got to see to the one you saved. Let’s not
forget her. That little angel is probably all her parents have left.”

“I can’t, Jeff. I can’t
face them,” I said as staunchly as I felt. In my mind, there was no way I was
going to face another second of pain. Facing the boy’s mother would be
impossible. Dr. Kerry’s detachment, at that moment, was nowhere to be found.

“And I say you are. I’ll
stand right beside you. But you’re the one who’s going to say the words.”

“I can’t, Jeff…I just
can’t.”

“Heather, listen to me,”
he said, taking me by my arms as if he were ready to shake me. “You are going
to become a fantastic surgeon, but you will not be able to save everyone that
comes in your operating theater. You will not be given that luxury. The
circumstances, such as the one surrounding this little boy’s injury, were out
of your control. So, now, you need to pick up the pieces, if only for his
sister’s sake. And remember, you didn’t make a mistake, okay?”

He released my arms.

“You will stand beside
me?” I asked as if I were a kid ready to receive a heck of a scolding from Dad.

“I said I would, didn’t
I?” He peered into my eyes. “Come on, let’s go.”

When we arrived upstairs,
Dr. Kerry was waiting for us in the lobby. She had been informed of what
happened in the dungeon.

“Okay, Dr. Williams,
let’s go to Isabelle Grundy’s room. She is the young lady you saved today.”

“Are her parents with her
now?” I asked, frightened again.

“Yes, Dr. Williams, they
are.” She turned to Jeff. “Haven’t you got somewhere else to be, Dr. Aldridge?”

“No, Dr. Kerry. Actually
I don’t. I arrived just as the boy closed his eyes. I thought I would give
moral assistance to Dr. Williams, since it’s her first loss.”

“Very well then, but you
will leave Dr. Williams to do her duty, won’t you?” Jeff nodded. “It’s
important that you do, my dear,” she added, looking at me. She turned and we
followed her down the hallway to the elevators.

During our initial tour
of the hospital, we had visited the children’s ward. It was one of the wards I
favored. It was cheerfully decorated. Many of the rooms were fitted with 3-D Walt
Disney characters glued to the walls.

When we arrived in
Isabelle’s room, as expected, her mom and dad got up from their chairs. I stepped
forward. Mrs. Grundy looked into my face. She knew immediately what I was going
to say.

“Where is he?” she asked,
her voice trembling with every word.

“I am very sorry, Mrs.
Grundy,” I said, “I tried to…I mean we all tried to do everything we could for your
son…”

“His name was Jimmy,” the
father cut-in, “We call him Jimmy.”

“We tried to save Jimmy,
sir. But he had just lost too much blood when he arrived at the hospital. I
couldn’t save him. I am sorry.”

“Oh God,” Jimmy’s mother
blurted, nestling her face in her husband’s chest.

“How is Isabelle?” I
asked, approaching my little patient’s bed. “How are you doing, sweetie?”

“Fine. My leg hurt.
Where’s Jimmy? Is he coming up to my room?”

“No, Izzy,” her mom said,
sitting on the side of her bed. “Jimmy is gone to visit Jesus.”

“Really? Why didn’t he
wait for me? I would have gone with him.”

Good
Lord. Please grant me another ounce of strength. This is not happening….

Dr. Kerry stepped closer
to the foot of the bed. “I think you better think of getting better, young
lady. Jesus and Jimmy are watching you right now, don’t you know? Jimmy needs
to know that you’re okay. And Dr. Williams will help you all the way. Right?”

“Okay, Dr. Kerry. I will
do my best.”

When I turned to leave
the room, I noticed Jeff standing near the door, his back leaning against the doorframe.
He wasn’t looking at anyone. He had his eyes focused on the floor and his arms
crossed over his chest. He looked as if he was about to cry.

“I’ll be back in a bit,
Mr. and Mrs. Grundy,” I told at the parents. “But you should get some rest…” I
looked at Dr. Kerry. She nodded. “If one of you wanted to stay with Isabelle,
we can arrange for a cot to be brought in.”

“Yes, that would be
nice,” Mrs. Grundy replied. “I’d like to stay, if that’s okay?”

“We’ll see to it. No
problem,” Dr. Kerry added. “But for now, we’ll leave you…”

“When will we be able to
see Jimmy,” the father asked, looking at Jeff.

“As soon as the coroner
has prepared his body for viewing, sir, you’ll be able to see him,” Jeff said.
“I’m sorry. I’m Dr. Aldridge. I was there when your son passed away. I just
wanted to offer my condolences to the both of you.”

That night, I had the
first of a series of recurring nightmares. My hands covered in blood were
blinding me and dripping over my mouth until I choked myself awake. Tiffany
thought I had hurt myself, I screamed so loud. When she came in to see what was
going on, I told her what happened and was finally able to cry for having lost
Jimmy–a little boy I didn’t even know.

Chapter
14

The next day, I tried not
to show any of the scars that were to decorate my heart for a long time to
come. I tried, with Tiffany’s help, to act as if nothing had happened. Our
schedule had changed slightly since most of the interns had someone to look after.
We had our patients to visit. I had to discharge the first boy I treated and I
had to pay another visit to Izzy. Tiffany had her own kids to visit; in fact,
every intern had someone to look after in the Children’s ward.

Dr. Kerry escorted us to
the floor, but she let us deal with our kids on our own–except for my looking
after Izzy. Dr. Kerry was well aware of the ordeal I had faced the previous day
and was probably aware of the images that were floating in front of my eyes as
I looked at the sick kids populating the ward.