A Stranger's Assistance Chapter 2
A/N: I'm sorry that this took so long to put up. As always, comments, concerns, and criticism are appreciated. :-) For those of you who enjoy Lost, yes, there is a charecter reference to it in this chapter. However, this is not a crossover, so there will be no supernatural plane crashes. See what I did there? :-) Enjoy!
Dr. Street heard the alarms go off and knew it was because of Dean.
When she arrived at the room. One of the nurses had already brought in a crash cart.'Crap,' Brooklyn thought to herself, ' Get yourself together. This is just another patient that's all. No different. Just do what you know. You never get compromised. Fix it. Now is not the time to be an idiot.' Dr. Street was frustrated by how attached she was becoming to this patient. She never is this attached. Of course she cares about her patients, but Brooklyn Street has always kept a professional distance. Become close enough to make them feel secure, but distanced enough not to become emotional.
Dr. Street knows that when she gets emotionally involved, it always ends badly. Probably because she is always attached to the ones who are holding on by a thread. It is always the five year old with a fatal onset of meningitis. It is always the man that has been married forty years who has suffered a heart attack and Brooklyn is the one left to deliver the news to the wife. Dr. Street learned quickly in residency that attachment is the road to becoming an alcohol-dependent physician.
That is something she swore to herself that she would never become.
She grabbed the defibrillator pads as soon as the machine was charged and ready for use. Dr. Street pressed them onto Dean's young but abused body.
Her patient jerked up.
Pulse: nothing.
She waited for the defibrillator to charge and shocked Dean again.
Still nothing.
This pattern continued for a few minutes before Dr. Street decided it would be better to do chest compressions. The defibrillator wasn't working out of him and Dean's body being jolted upward was causing a lot of strain on his injured spine.
Brooklyn started placed her hands on Dean's chest and started counting.
Once she did 30, one of the nurses squeezed a BVM, filling Dean's lungs with air.
Dr. Street repeated this pattern two more times before...
" We have a sinus rhythm in his pulse."
'Finally...' Brooklyn let out a breath she didn't know that she had been holding. Dr. Street told the nurses to keep Dean in ICU for now because his body wouldn't be ready for surgery after that. While the nurses were getting Dean situated, Dr. Street headed downstairs to talk with Lisa, Ben, and hopefully with the spinal surgeon she was planning to meet with earlier before this whole fiasco.
"Ms. Braden?"
"Dr. Street?" Lisa's concerned brown eyes meet the doctor's grey ones.
"Yes, I am sorry I had to run off like that but..."
"It was Dean wasn't it?" Lisa interrupted.
"Yes, I am afraid so. He in under control for now."
"Can we see him?"
"No, not yet. Maybe after you and your son are officially released. We want to let him recover from the ordeal earlier as well. Then, we want the spinal surgeon to take a look. It is too early to assume, but a portion of his vertebral column could be dislocated. However, it could just be bruised and have a lot of swelling from the accident. We'll see. He is scheduled for an MRI later today." Dr. Street replied.
She was going to mention that the lack of oxygen to Dean's brain could increase his chance of slipping into a coma, but held her tongue. This small family already had enough bad news in the past eight hours. Dr. Street was dreading the anticipation of telling Lisa and Ben that Dean is in a coma.
While the human side of her is praying that Dean will wake up soon and have a speedy recovery, her logical side is telling her that his chance of waking up soon is less than 5%.
"Lisa, why don't you get some rest and in the morning I'll treat you and Ben to breakfast. That way I can finish hearing the rest of your story." Lisa smiled.
" I'd like that. Thank you Dr. Street."
The grey-eyed doctor nodded in reply and headed to the office of the hospital's spinal surgeon, Dr. Jack Shepard. Brooklyn was glad that Dr. Shepard was at this hospital and not some fancy high end hospital in Los Angles. He was an amazing surgeon and surprisingly, did not have an ego the size of Russia. He was pretty reserved and genuinely cared about his patients.
Dr. Street knocked on the dark wooden door leading to the surgeon's office. "Jack Shepard? Hello this is Dr. Brooklyn Street from the E.R."
"Oh yes Brooklyn," he replied," please come in Dr. Street."
Brooklyn opened the door and saw the dark-haired man working diligently on paperwork at his desk. His kind eyes looked up as she entered his neatly kept office."What can I do for you?"
"I have a potential paitent for you. He is in his early thirties and just was in a car accident. He was the driver. His girlfriend and her son were in there as well, but they are fine now, just a little scraped up. I think he either slipped a disc, dislocated his vertebrae, or it could just be bruising. I need your professional opinion on this one. I truly hope it is nothing serious, but you are the best and he definitely needs the best."
" Hmmm. Ok. I'll take a look at him. Has he had a MRI yet?"
"No, not yet. He is scheduled for one later today though."
" Good. Thank you for bringing him to my attention personally."Dr. Street nodded and started to leave when the surgeon's gentle voice stopped her. "Oh and Brooklyn, get some sleep. You look like you haven't slept in 48 hours. You can't care for your patients when you can't focus. It's past your shift anyway. If you are not going home then at least take a little nap in the break room. You need it." Dr. Shepard smiled and let her leave.
Dr. Street walked upstairs to where the staff break room was. She took off her white coat and put it down over the coach. Brooklyn sat down on the orange coach and laid her head down on the blue pillow.
'Dean, you better not do anything yet. Not when I'm not there. Don't die on me.' This was Dr. Street's last though before drifting into unconsciousness.
Thank you for reading! To be continued...