The Emergency

Her hands shook as she turned the corner almost forgetting to flip the turn signal on. The red light changed to green as she pulled into traffic. Her boyfriend sat slumped in the passenger seat. Carrie glanced over at him and reached for his thigh to squeeze it.

"We're almost there, David." she said, panic tinging her voice.

He groaned quietly and her heart thudded in her chest. His arm was limp at his side. The shirt was torn around the wound seeping blood through the tourniquet she hastily wrapped around his cut. He refused an ambulance though she begged him to let her call. Begrudgingly, he let her load him in her small Outback to drive him to the emergency room.

"Don't pass out on me, David," she pleaded.
He mumbled a response she didn't quite understand and her foot pressed the accelerator in response.

Pulling in to the parking lot she parked, not caring if she the car was straight. He always ripped on her for her parking, but this time he said nothing. She rushed to his door and helped him out. He leaned heavily on her left shoulder. He was almost a foot taller than her and she struggled to hold him up while guiding him through the doors to the intake desk.

At midnight, the place was still swarming with people in all states of illness and injury. She quickly filled out forms and handed his insurance card to the bored young woman who had seen it all.

"Please, can we see a doctor?" The girl clicked her pen in distraction and gave her a clipboard.

"Take a seat," she replied.

The blood trickled from out beneath the towel loosely bandaging the ragged tear. Carrie said, "He's bleeding heavily, can't he be seen now?"

"We will call you," the woman repeated.

She led David to an empty seat and helped him sit.

"I'm sorry, David."

His head rested on the plastic chair. The longer they sat the more drenched the towel grew. The nurse at the door called other patients in one by one.

"David?" a nurse called.

She helped him walk to the small door.

The nurse took his pulse and temperature. Once she unwrapped the towel, her face blanched at the gaping wound. The cut exposed bone and muscle. Blood coagulated on the makeshift bandage making it hard to remove.

"What happened?" she said, asking Carrie.

"I don't know! He won't tell me. Please, just save his arm!"

"David?" the nurse inquired.

David looked at her blankly. "What happened? I woke up like this when I was dropped at my house."

Carrie began to cry, all the adrenaline letting loose there in front of the plump nurse.

The nurse patted her arm and left the room. She quickly returned with an older physician. He studied the arm carefully and noticed the sharp cuts along the muscle. His brow furrowed and he stated, "Set up a surgical room, he's going to lose part of the arm if we don't act quickly."

"It's all gone, Carrie," David whispered, "I made a terrible mistake."

"What did you do, David?" Carrie's hands shook, I don't understand!"

"David?"

David slumped in the chair, his eyes drifting back in his head.

"Code blue," the physician yelled, and four emergency room employees rushed in the small room with a gurney, pushing Carrie aside to lift David's limp body onto the stretcher wheeling him behind swinging doors as she remained numb in the hard, unforgiving chair.

SRC

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