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“Got it,” he says, coming out from behind the desk and following me toward the nurses’ station.
“We’re putting her in the trauma bay,” I tell him with a head nod toward room four, the room closest to the nurses, where we have extra equipment which might be needed in circumstances like these.
Graham helps me make quick work of prepping the room, adjusting the bed to its highest position, making sure it’s easily accessible from all sides. If the EMS team followed protocol, then she should come in with a C-collar and back board, but I grab both just in case.
I hear the doors to the ER opening, and both Graham and I walk out of the room to see Evie escorting the EMTs as they wheel in the stretcher carrying the patient, who’s currently wearing a C-collar and covered in blankets, all pinned down by the safety straps to keep her from moving during transport.
I’m instantly taken back to the moment I entered this very hospital, the same exact way, a brace around my neck, tied down to a stretcher. It’s not the first time I’ve seen someone come into the ER in this state, nor is it the first time it’s stirred something inside of me, seeing it from this angle. Like it was yesterday, I can remember the bumpy ride of the ambulance, the kind, reassuring voices of the EMTs, the beeping noises coming from the variety of equipment in the back of the vehicle. The shock and the pain that came in waves.
I follow the EMTs into room four, Graham on my heels, and wait while they carefully unstrap the girl and move her from the stretcher to the bed, the back board coming with to keep her stable.
“What information do you have for us?” Graham asks the EMTs.
They begin giving him the details. Head-on collision, a girl named Emma, age seventeen, found at the scene, multiple lacerations, complaining of severe pain in her back. Possible spinal injury. They give him her vitals, but I start prepping her to take them myself.
“I’m Lucy,” I say, leaning over her so she can see my face since she can’t move with the C-collar on. She’s got blonde hair nearly the same shade as mine and bright-blue eyes. There’s dried blood on her forehead stretching up to her hairline.
“Can you tell me your name?”
“Emma,” she says, her voice shaky. A tear falls from the corner of her eye and down the side of her face.
“We’ve got you, Emma. You’re in good hands with Dr. Shackwell. I’m just going to check a few things. I need you to hold still and not move for me, okay?” I attach the pulse oximeter to her finger to check her o2 sats and pulse rate.
“Okay,” she says, more tears pooling in the corners of her eyes and spilling down her cheeks.
“Parents have been called and are on their way,” I hear one of the EMTs tell Graham.
I make quick work of taking her blood pressure and then checking her temperature. Because I need to keep her stable but don’t know the exact damage, I watch her chest rise and fall to assess her respiratory rate. All seems normal.
“What’s your pain level, Emma?” I peer over at her. “On a scale of zero to ten.”
“I don’t know,” she says through a sob. “It feels like an eight, maybe?”
“Where do you feel the pain the most?”
“In my lower back.”
“Is it sharp, dull, throbbing?”
“Uh ... all of that,” she says, her eyes squinting.
“Got it. I’m just going to talk to Dr. Shackwell, and we’ll get you something for the pain.”
“Thank you,” she says.
The EMTs leave, and I give Graham the information I’ve gathered.
“Hi, Emma, I’m Dr. Shackwell,” Graham says after I’ve spoken with him, his voice coming out soft and comforting. I love his bedside manner. He’s always been gentle with any patients I’ve seen him with. “I’m just going to check a few things; is that okay?”
“Ya-yes,” she says, fresh tears starting.
I grab her hand to comfort her, remembering a nurse did the same for me after my accident, since I was all by myself while Ryan was checked out in a different room, and our parents had yet to make it to the hospital.
She grasps onto my fingers.
Graham carefully pulls off her shoes and starts peppering her with questions to assess her awareness and orientation. He asks her if she can feel his hands where he touches her toes, her ankles, calves, knees, and thighs.
“That’s good,” he says when she tells him she can feel it all.
