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“What is all the commotion?” she asks, and I can see that she is still a little dazed due to the heavy drugs she is on to recover from open heart surgery. She is in no state to be moved or rushed, but it is a full evacuation.
“I need to move you, Mrs. Rothschild,” I say, coughing as the smoke begins to fill her room. Whatever started the fire must be water resistant because it is not letting up, even though the sprinklers are practically turning the floor into a swimming pool. I pause for a moment. If the fire is electrical or is near the hospital gas or oxygen lines, then the water spraying from above is going to do very little to stop it. If anything, it could make it worse. I start moving quicker as panic starts to set in because I can’t hear any sirens or the fire department yet at all.
“You have some nerve coming back in here,” she seethes as I try to unhook all the tubes and monitors to get her ready to evacuate.
“Some nerve, ma’am?” I ask, not paying too much attention to her words as they still slur from her mouth. She coughs a little then, making me move faster.
“You need to leave my son alone,” she says angrily, and I look at her. Her eyes narrow at me, and I can’t believe this is what I need to deal with while trying to evacuate her.
“We can discuss that later, Mrs. Rothschild. Right now, I need to wheel you out of this hospital.” I hook machines to her bed and unlink others, trying to determine what is most important and what I can leave behind.
“Katie?” Shelley screams from the hallway.
“On my way, last one, you go!” I see her out in the hallway, wheeling a man in a wheelchair.
“Be fast!” she yells. “The smoke is really thick now!” I see her push the man quickly, almost running, him gripping the arms of the wheelchair tight before another body rushes into the room.
“Diane, we need to move you now,” Dr. Wilson says as he rushes into the room and straight to her bedside. He starts unplugging things without a care in the world. He throws monitors away and puts the IV bags on the bed.
“Nurse Taylor, she is still recovering. Her heart can’t take too much right now,” he says to me like I don’t already know.
“Yes, Doctor,” I say as I lift the brakes from the bed and we start pushing her slowly.
“Colin?” I hear her ask him, a little fright in her voice.
“It will be okay, Diane.” I don’t miss him grabbing her hand and holding it in his.
“Okay, let’s open the door wider and get out of here,” Dr. Wilson says, looking at me, and I open the double doors to her room, pushing them back to create enough space for us to move through. As I do, smoke bellows into the room, so thick, I close my eyes immediately, the stinging making my eyes water instantly.
“Shit,” Dr. Wilson says.
“Oh my.” Mrs. Rothschild starts to cry as I run around her bed, feeling my way, and I start to pull her through the doors.
“Let’s go, Nurse Taylor!” Dr. Wilson snarls at me as I rush, meanwhile he stands watching me do everything. The bed starts moving, and I feel the momentum as we get to the door, but before we can make it through, the bed stops suddenly. Dr. Wilson and I continue to push, but it is not working.
“It’s caught on something!” I yell, my hair splattered against my face. Dr. Wilson seemingly waits for me to do something. I dive under the bed, looking at each of the wheels.
“Hurry up!” Dr. Wilson berates me, and I move to the last wheel, underneath where he stands, so close I can make out the color of his socks, and I see it. The IV cords that he haphazardly threw onto her bed earlier are now all caught in the wheel because he didn’t move them properly.
“It’s her IV. The cords are stuck!” I yell to him as I get busy, trying to unhook the mess.
“Well, get them unstuck for Christ’s sake!” he yells at me again, but I can’t. Panic fills my chest as I pull on the plastic tubes and then push them in the other direction, moving them every way I can to try to get them out of the wheel, but there are about three cords all squished together, none of them coming loose. I could cut them, but the way they are all mushed together, I still don’t think they would come unstuck, they are wound tight. My chest hurts as my cough becomes consistent, so much so, I can’t really stop. Panic continues to rise, and my heart thumps in my chest. The alarms are deafening, smoke even thicker, and my throat is on fire.
“We need to move her into a wheelchair,” I splutter to Dr. Wilson as I stand back up and look around the room, my eyes stinging. There is no wheelchair; someone must have moved it.
“I am not getting in a wheelchair! I am not an invalid,” Mrs. Rothschild says as Dr. Wilson bends over to take a look down at the wheel on the bed. Standing up quickly, he looks at me, obviously coming to the same conclusion about our predicament.
“There is no wheelchair. Pick her up, Nurse Taylor.” He is kidding, right? She is dead weight, completely out of it on her medication after her surgery. He looks at me seriously, so not wanting to waste any time, I start to pull her toward me. Maybe I can put her over my shoulder, although that would hurt her chest immensely. She starts slapping my hands away, not wanting me to touch her. The smoke is getting thicker, so now I can barely see either of them. Then I hear a hiss. Oxygen.
“Where are the oxygen lines?” I scream to Dr. Wilson.
“What?” he yells.
“Which way do the oxygen lines run?” I ask as I look around. I have never seen the plans for the hospital, and as I look to where the flames are coming, I get a deep-seated feeling that the wall the flames are running up are right near the oxygen storage.
“We need to go now!” I start pulling her off the bed. She screams in pain, and my heart lurches.
“Stop, don’t touch her!” Dr. Wilson says, slapping my hands away, and I can see the panic now on his face. He knows what is going to happen.
