In Another Life (4 page)

Running, Jane tackled the lorry first. Carefully, she approached the wreckage and crouching down looked inside. Removing a torch from her uniform jacket she shone it within the driver’s carriage.

Everything inside was wrecked, turned upside down and thrown around beyond recognition. The windscreen was completely smashed in and there was an overwhelming stench of petrol which worried Jane. Continuing to look around she located the driver slumped over his steering wheel. She made to manoeuvre her body inside the carriage to take his vitals and check for signs of life but suddenly stopped. In her torch light beam she surveyed his head and saw the soft pink, bubbling mass of exposed brain glistening in the light. Instantly, she knew that Tommy was beyond saving, if not dead already.

Moving as quickly as she could she removed herself from the lorry and ran towards the next vehicle.

“Driver in the lorry has exposed brain matter,” she called to a colleague who nodded, their expression grim. Once a precious organ like the brain was severely exposed to the elements there was nothing they could do out in the field. Jane needed to focus her attention on the victims that she could save.

The next car she came to was a small red one, flipped on its side. Shining her torch inside she saw a female squashed up against the steering wheel. Casting her light over the body she noticed an extensive amount of blood and began to fear that this was also someone beyond her help.

Almost flat to the ground Jane studied the girl. She didn’t appear to be moving at all.

“Hello, can you hear me?” Jane asked loudly. “You’ve been in a car accident. My name is Jane and I’m a paramedic from St. Jude’s hospital. Can you hear me?”

The girl was still.

“Dammit,” Jane muttered, pushing her body to creep closer in to the wreckage. The torch light exposed that the girls’ hair was sodden with her own blood and both arms appeared to be broken in several places, hanging by her sides at strange, unnatural angles.

Jane wasn’t ready to walk away. She needed to check for a pulse. Just as her head was almost at the girl’s neck the young woman started to violently convulse. Jane pulled away and began shouting for back up.

“We’ve got someone here, she’s convulsing, we need to get her out, now!”

Three fire fighters ran over, clutching the Jaws of Life. 

“She’s just in there,” Jane pointed. The girl was still twitching and convulsing in the driver’s seat though she didn’t appear to have regained consciousness.

Twenty tense minutes later, the young woman was on a gurney, her head and neck supported in a brace, being loaded on to a waiting ambulance.

Jane looked down at her. Through the congealed blood covering her face she could see how young and beautiful she was. In her line of work, Jane quickly learned how vicious death could be. It didn’t care how good you were, how young, how old, how rich or how poor. It would come for you with ruthless determination no matter what.

Watching the girl get loaded in to the ambulance Jane took a brief second to hope that she would live, that she would be okay. Then she raced over to the next vehicle, to the next life hanging in the balance.

*

“What have we got?” Dr. Simmons asked the presenting paramedics who stood around the girl on the gurney who was strapped down.

“Young female, involved in a head on collision. Appears to have suffered severe head and chest wounds. Assessment on site showed a weak pulse. She was also convulsing heavily on site so needs an emergency CT and MRI.”

Dr. Simmons nodded as he listened, scanning the injured girl with his eyes.

“Multiple breaks in the arms,” the paramedic continued. “As well as the legs.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Simmons replied formally. “How many more can we expect to be coming in from the accident?”

“Not many,” the paramedic reported grimly. “Many were dead at the scene.”

Dr. Simmons felt his chest tighten but he remained professional and courteous.

“Thank you, we’ll take it from here.”

The paramedics left and Dr. Simmons immediately began ordering essential tests for the girl on the gurney. She was fast running out of time within the golden hour. She was already at risk of so many fatal injuries; a bleed on the brain, ruptured lungs. He needed to assess her as swiftly as possible.

*

Several hours later and Marie Schneider was alone in a hospital room, intubated and unconscious. The machines around her beeped as they helped her breath and monitored her weak vital signs.

Her arms had been bandaged at her sides, as had her legs. Initial x-rays showed that she’d suffered multiple breaks.

With all the blood cleaned off her face she appeared as ghostly white as the walls around her. Her hair seemed eerily dark against the pristine pillows which propped her head up.

Dr. Simmons glanced in on his patient as he prepared to finish his shift. She was alive which made him feel satisfied that he’d done his job that day. When she came in, Marie was clinging on to life by the thinnest of threads. Now she was at least stable. Dr. Simmons would be unable to assess the true extent of the injuries until she woke up. If she woke up.

His patient was young. In her twenties. Her belongings had been with her at the crash and had enabled them to contact her next of kin. Soon they would arrive, worried and anxious to be told that the person they loved was currently in a coma and doctors had no idea when and if she would wake up.

Comas were difficult. Dr. Simmons understood when family and friends wanted finite answers but all he could give them were theoretical outcomes. Every coma patient was different. Sometimes a coma lasted three days, sometimes it could last three years. It was a trying, tense time for all involved.

Marie had not recovered consciousness since she’d been admitted to the hospital. She’d had several further fits which were under control now, thanks to the drugs being pumped in to her veins. The CT and MRI scans showed excessive bleeding on the brain which had needed an emergency procedure to help clear.

The crown of her head was now swathed in bandages, covering the incisions which had been made and now needed to heal. It appeared that the bleed hadn’t caused any permanent damage, but then it was all so hard to judge when the patient wasn’t awake to tell you how they felt. Marie’s body was almost in stasis as it struggled to cope with the horrific injuries which had been inflicted upon it.

“Dr. Simmons?” Angela Crenshaw appeared at the consultant’s side. She was a newly graduated nurse and carried the nervous energy of someone acclimatising to the demands of the job.

“Yes?” Dr. Simmons turned away from Marie to face her.

“Marie’s family will be here soon,” she began tentatively. “They are going to want to know when we expect her to wake up. What should we tell them?”

Dr. Simmons sighed. This was always such a difficult question to answer. Hope was so important within hospitals; he knew it was essential to never let it die completely, even when a situation appeared hopeless.

“Be positive,” he urged. “Explain how she’s currently in a coma but could wake up at any given moment.”

“Could she?” Angela sounded bright with optimism.

“Also explain the severity of her injuries, how her brain especially has been damaged and as such her body has shut down while she recovers. Currently the intubation is breathing for her and all we can do is wait and hope she wakes up.”

“Exactly,” Angela smiled in agreement. She wanted Marie to wake up, no, she needed Marie to wake up. In her brief stint working full time as a nurse since graduating she’d not seen anyone die, not yet. She couldn’t bear the thought that the first death she witnessed might be of someone just a little older than she was.

“They also need to be aware that as and when Marie wakes up, she might be different.” 

“Different?”

“Her speech might be impaired; she might be unable to walk. We can’t predict how badly her brain has been damaged until she’s awake.”

Angela nodded gravely and cast a forlorn look at Marie. It seemed so cruel that even waking up wasn’t a guarantee that everything would be alright. She’d either wake up and be herself or she’d wake up and be irrevocably damaged for the rest of her life.

“She was just driving home, oblivious about what was about to happen,” Angela said uneasily, scared by how fragile life was. Growing up, as a teenager she’d felt infinite, like she could do anything. Then as she started studying medicine she learned just how impossibly fragile the human body was. Bones could break, skin could tear, and organs could rupture. There seemed to be a million ways that someone could die. It was terrifying.

“Remember to be positive with her family,” Dr. Simmons advised. “They are going to be scared and confused and needing answers.”

With that he walked away. His body ached and he longed for the comfort of his king sized bed. Whether or not his wife would be in it didn’t matter. He loathed the weekend shifts. He tried to put off taking one as much as he could but they always seemed to catch up with him. It felt like the worst cases always arrived over the weekend, as if everyone was being cautious with their lives all week but once Friday rolls around they embrace recklessness and lose all sense of their own mortality.

As Dr. Simmons reached his Audi he realised how desperately he needed a drink. Something strong to dull his senses like neat vodka. He couldn’t let his anxieties about what went on in the hospital pollute his time at home. He couldn’t sacrifice his precious free time wondering whether or not Marie Schneider would live. Vodka was his medicine. It helped him forget, it helped him cope.

He climbed in to his car and turned the key in the ignition. When he returned Monday morning he’d discover if the young girl had pulled through and whether or not she’d woken up.

*

The music throbbed in Sebastian’s ears as he pushed his way towards the bar. His vision was already slightly blurred from the five gin and tonics he’d already enjoyed throughout the evening. The room around him felt alive and pregnant with opportunity, his senses both dulled and elated by the alcohol in equal measure.

He was having a good night. He was with his friends, the drinks were flowing and soon they’d stagger off to a night club where they’d awkwardly manoeuvre on the dance floor until the small hours. Everything felt great. Almost.

Sebastian thought of Marie and felt a twinge of longing pull at the nape of his neck, drawing him away from the revelry of the night. He missed her. Every time he thought they were getting closer she’d escape back to her home, to her family, closing the hatches and refusing to completely let him in. To Seb, it felt as if he’d never truly know her. Despite their years of dating and their promise to wed, Marie remained an enigma to him. It was part of her allure but it also drove him crazy with desperation. He wanted to know her, wanted to feel like they were two halves of the same whole but for Marie it was different. She was also looking for something to complete her, except what she was looking for wasn’t him.

In his suit jacket pocket Sebastian’s phone began to vibrate against his chest like an artificial heartbeat. He quickly retrieved it, hoping it was Marie. He looked at the name flashing on the screen and had to do a double take. It was a number which had never had cause to call him before. It was Bill Schneider calling him, Marie’s father.

Over the past few years Sebastian had met Bill Schneider on a handful of occasions and when they met they barely said anything to one another. They discussed bland topics like the current weather or state of various football teams. Marie was the only thing they had in common. Bill was understandably protective of his only daughter and regarded the millionaire Fenwick boy with caution. Yet here he was, suddenly calling Sebastian out of the blue on a Friday night. What could he possibly want?

As Sebastian accepted the call his blood ran cold, the liquor quickly dispersing from his system, the pleasant effects it induced being washed aside as fearful realisation set in.  If Bill was calling it meant that something bad had happened. It meant that something bad had happened to Marie.