Triage (3/?, PG13, Dean, Sam, John)
Title: Triage
Disclaimer: I own neither Supernatural nor its characters.
Rating: PG13 so far. Might be R later, but I doubt it.
Pairings: None.
Characters: Dean, Sam, John, Pastor Jim, OCs.
Wordcount: 3220.
Warning: Grammar (unbetaed!), liberal use of medical medications and effects.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Sometimes you think you made the right call, only to realize you've made a really big mistake...
eeeeeeffffff
Chapter Three
The rain had let up a bit by the time Dean pulled up to the hospital entrance. Sam had been silent for a while now, and Dean was freaking out.
He got out of the car and just stood there a second, shocked by the cold. If he'd thought it was cold inside the impala, the outside was a freaking freezer.
Opening the back door, Dean cursed. Sam was curled in on himself, eyes closed, skin far too pale. There was so much blood everywhere. "Sam? Sam, c'mon, we're here," Dean said, shaking in the cold. "Sammy, please, open your eyes, okay? Just open your eyes," Dean begged, but his little brother remained motionless.
Shielding his eyes from the rain, Dean searched the hospital entrance for someone who might be able to help him, but found no one. Apparently, the rain and the cold drove even the smokers back inside the building.
"Sam, please," Dean urged, but to no avail. "Damn it," he muttered, his breath fogging the air, and leaned into the car, hissing in pain as his ribs protested the movement. He sucked in his breath and tried pulling his brother out of the car. Everything got white-hot for a few seconds, and it took Dean a few seconds more to remember to breathe.
He leaned heavily against the car, heart racing with fear. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and shivered, trying to figure out what to do. He couldn’t carry Sam, that was made painfully obvious, but he didn’t want to leave his brother here. He needed someone to go call for help, but there was no one around. Not even a freaking stray dog.
Time was quickly running out. There simply wasn’t any time left to start weighing the pros and cons. He had to get Sam inside, get Sam some help, and right the hell now.
His mind made up, Dean closed the car door, leaving Sam inside, and headed for the hospital entrance as fast as he could.
"Somebody help me!" Dean cried as the automatic doors opened and closed behind him. He was stunned silent for a second when a wave of heat hit him, making him dizzy. The emergency room was loud and overcrowded - a sharp opposite to the snowy night outside. Some people looked his way as he came in - mostly patients - but no one actually moved to help.
"Oh, screw this," Dean muttered under his breath and pushed his way towards the front desk. "I need help! Somebody freaking help me!" he yelled.
That got him some attention, mostly from security though. It did seem to help as the security guy - bless his soul - practically grabbed a nurse and pushed her Dean's way.
"I need help!" Dean's voice cracked at the end and he pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose to stop the room from spinning.
"Of course," the nurse said. She put a hand on his shoulder. "You sit right here, honey. Let me take a look at you."
It took a couple of seconds for her words to sink in, and Dean figured, with all of Sam's blood all over him, no wonder she thought he was the one bleeding to death. He pushed back when she tried to make him sit.
"No. No, no, no, you don’t get it," Dean said, "It's my brother. He's bleeding to death, and I can't carry him here."
The nurse took a closer look at him, her eyes narrowing. "Your brother?"
Dean nodded, "Outside, in the car!" he cried, frantic. "You gotta help him! Please, you gotta help him!"
The nurse studied him for far too long before she finally turned back and called out for help. Dean led them out to the car, opened the back door for them, and man, Sam looked even worse if that was at all possible.
"You gotta save him," Dean choked, "He's my brother, you gotta save him!"
"It's alright. It's okay, kid. Move out of the way so that we can do our job," someone said, and Dean was gently pushed aside.
He watched, wide eyed, as someone got in the car with his brother and started yelling and ordering people around. It seemed like a second later, Sam was on a gurney, new bandages pressed into his stomach to try stave off the bleeding.
No one was paying Dean any attention anymore. Everyone was busy with Sam, and that was just the way Dean had wanted it. All these doctors and nurses tending to his brother - surely Sam would be alright.
He'd gotten Sam to the hospital. They could fix him here. He'd be alright. He had to be.
Dean followed the medical personnel inside, his legs moving without him really registering it.
"You have to stay here," someone said and stood in his way.
Dean blinked. "What?"
"You can't get in there. You have to stay here," the nurse repeated.
"But… My brother!" Dean protested.
"The doctors are working on him now. You don’t want to get in their way, do you? They need to work on your brother. You'll only be in their way."
Dean shook his head, panting. Black spots appeared before his eyes, but he ignored them. "But…"
The nurse gently moved him over to the front desk and handed him a clipboard and a pen. "Best thing you can do for your brother right now is fill these up," she said succinctly.
"No, but…"
"Fill these out," the nurse repeated. "You want to help your brother? Fill out the paperwork," she said, and then left him standing there.
Dean stared at the clipboard in his hand, and then looked up at the double doors his brother had been wheeled through, and back to the clipboard again.
He could help Sam if he filled the paperwork, that nurse said so. He couldn’t help him by going behind these double doors; Sam was unconscious, Dean would just be in the way. But he could fill out the paperwork. No one knew Sam's medical history better anyway. He could do that, to help his brother.
Dean sighed, closing his eyes for a few seconds. He had to practically force them open, and he shook his head to clear it. Sighing again, Dean looked around.
The waiting room was full of people, many of them standing up for lack of chairs. He let out a breath and ran his fingers through his wet hair. He was so tired.
Behind him, someone called out a name and a Hispanic woman holding a toddler got up from a seat in the corner, not far from him. Dean blinked. No one seemed to rush over and take a seat, and he was so damn tired. Not that a hospital chair would do his aching back any favors, but still.
It wasn’t until he sat down that Dean realized his hands were shaking. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and looked at the clipboard again.
He frowned.
The words made no sense whatsoever.
He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, and opened them again, trying to focus on the small print.
Patient name. That was easy. Sam. Sam… Huh. Dean couldn’t remember the alias they used on the insurance card. He bit his lower lip, trying to remember, but he was just so damn tired. He wrote down Sam, hoping their Dad at least kept their first names.
The second line on the form was all scrambled; words that made no sense at all. He found a few empty lines and wrote 'allergic to sea food', not even caring if it was in the right place or not.
His head had been pounding ever since he woke up in the mud. It had gotten even worse after that first driver blinded him with the headlights. He just had to rest his eyes for a minute, just a minute, and then things will clear up. He'll be able to fill out the form, help Sammy. He just had to close his eyes for a couple of minutes was all.
It was just pure luck that his chair was in a corner. He pushed it even closer to the wall and sat back down, letting his heavy head rest against the wall and at least lessen the chance of a wicked crick in his neck later.
Not that that was likely to happen in the two minutes he rested his eyes, but still. He was so tired…
eeeeeeffffff
Valerie got out of the busy exam room and tossed her bloody latex gloves in the bio hazard bin. There were too many doctors and nurses in the room for her to be of any help, and there were too many people out in the waiting room waiting for help.
It was only half past midnight and already this seemed like the shift from hell. Not that she didn’t expect it to be - they knew it would be tough the moment they heard the weather report. Three days of rain, with the temperature constantly dropping. The newscast might as well have said three days of MVAs and kids with the flu. God, she hated winter. And new shoes. Comfortable from the first step her ass.
Valerie went into the nurses' lounge and grabbed herself a cup of coffee. It was running low, she noticed, but she just didn’t have the energy to make some more. She did slip a couple of bucks into the cookie jar they used as a piggy bank.
Every week or so, one of the staff members was in charge of buying some decent coffee, and they all chipped in to get it. Wasn’t too cheap, but it was damn worth it, especially on nights like these.
She considered taking her shoes off for just a couple of minutes, maybe massage her feet for a little while, but just then Amber popped her head in the room and told her to get her ass in gear because they were swamped. Sighing, Valerie poured her coffee into a Styrofoam cup and got out of the lounge.
The waiting room was loud and overflowing, just as it had been for hours now, but before she could attend to these patients, she had some unfinished business to see to first. She grabbed a pair of scrubs from the clean scrubs pile and started looking around for the kid from earlier.
He'd been a mess - half his face covered in blood from a cut in his cheek, his clothes covered in mud and soaked in rain and his brother's blood. Kid needed out of those clothes before he caught pneumonia. Maybe if she cleaned him some, she could get a resident to stitch him up.
Finding him in all that crowd though; that was first thing on the list. And apparently, it wasn’t all too difficult after all. The boy seemed to have left breadcrumbs in his wake. Or rather, a bloody boot print - the left one - going all the way from the hall to the waiting room.
Freddie wasn’t going to like this, Valerie thought.
Freddie was the hospital janitor. Well, one of a few, at least, but Freddie had been with the hospital since it opened, and he was still here even though he officially retired three years ago. Said it gave him something to get out of bed for after his wife Edna had passed away.
Following the bloody prints, Valerie found the boy sleeping in a chair in one of the corners. His eyes were closed, head lolling to the side, resting against the wall. There was the beginning of a dark puddle forming under his chair, and Valerie was sure Freddie wasn’t going to approve of that, especially on such a busy day. Freddie had always prided himself on keeping a clean hospital.
Crouching next to the boy, Valerie gently removed the clipboard from his lax fingers and went over the papers. She frowned. It wasn’t even half filled. Just a name and the patient's allergies where the medical history should have been written. No contact information, no insurance details.
Valerie looked up at the sleeping kid again. He must have been exhausted, she thought. Scared out of his mind by his brother's injuries. She sighed. He looked awfully young himself; maybe seventeen years old, and with no parent to be seen around here. Possibly left to babysit his brother.
She had to fight the urge to clear the hair away from his face. Instead she let out a breath and shook his knee. "Hey kid, wake up," she said, "I brought you some dry, clean clothes to change into. Last thing you want is to get sick, right?" She asked, but the boy kept on sleeping.
She really ought to call his parents. His brother's injuries were serious, their parents should be here to take care of him, take care of them both. Hell, this kid might be suffering from nothing more than a bad cut to his cheek, but he was paler than the walls around him, his freckles standing out in sharp contrast.
Valerie touched the boy's hand. It was ice cold. He really had to get out of those wet clothes. Maybe she could get him some of that teeth-rotting, super sweet cocoa from the machine on the third floor. It'll warm him up if nothing more. Make his dentist happy, too.
"Come on, son. Time to wake up now. We need to call your parents, get some more information so we could help your brother," Valerie said, giving his arm another shake. "And you really should change into something dry," she added, but got no reaction.
Valerie's frown deepened. "Kid? You with me?" She asked, slapping him gently on the cheek. And still got no reaction.
She shifted into a more comfortable position, putting the dry scrubs on the floor, and took another look at the boy.
A closer look.
She wasn’t looking at a patient's brother anymore; she was looking at a very pale and unresponsive teenager, who was soaking wet, freezing cold, and with blood all over his clothes.
There was blood all over his clothes.
His brother's blood. Or so he'd said.
Tentatively, Valerie reached for the boy's shirt, lifting it up. The denim was stiff, and that was never a good thing. It also resisted being lifted - at least until the puncture wounds became all too clear, and started bleeding twice as much.
Valerie cursed out loud and reached over to check for a pulse. She cursed yet again. "Suzie, Malik, I need a gurney over here! And get Dr. Lopez, too," Valerie cried out.
"Oh, damn it," she snapped as she turned her head just in time to catch the limp body that nearly slid out of the seat in front of her. And then she noticed the dark red stain on the wall.
She hated herself a little when her first thought was that Freddie was not going to be happy about the blood stain on the wall. But still. Freddie was a nice old man, and getting blood off the walls was never an easy task.
Valerie gently prodded the back of the boy's neck and tried her best to smother another curse when her hand came back covered in blood and mud. "Because you're not in enough trouble as it is, are you kid?" Valerie muttered to herself and fought the boy's dead weight until her coworkers arrived with the gurney.
"Here, let me help," Malik offered, and both he and Suzie helped Valerie wrestle the unconscious boy onto the gurney.
"Careful with his head," Valerie cautioned.
"Let's put him in six. I think that's open," Suzie supplied, and they wheeled him off towards the exam room.
"What's wrong with him?" Malik asked as he helped move the unconscious teen to the exam table. "Beside all the blood, I mean."
Valerie looked up at him, and then back to her patient. "I don’t know," she admitted.
"Where are his parents?" Suzie asked.
"I don’t know. I don’t think they're here," Valerie said, putting a fresh pair of latex gloves on. "He brought his brother in a while ago. The kid in two?"
"The one with the slashed abdomen? That was almost an hour ago," Malik said.
"Just go get someone before this kid bleeds to death!" Valerie snapped at him.
"What's going on in here?" Dr. Levi asked and Valerie flinched at her tone. She hated working with Dr. Levi. The woman was a brilliant physician, but a total bitch to have around.
"We don't know yet," She said, not looking at Levi. She made quick work at taking the boy's boots and wet socks off and cutting his bloody clothes. "Looks like several stab wounds to his lower abdomen. He's lost a lot of blood."
"Temp's ninety seven," Suzie supplied, and Valerie nearly breathed in relief when Malik walked back in the room, closely followed by Dr. Lopez.
"Get some warm saline right away," Dr. Levi instructed, and Malik nodded and left to get it.
"Blood pressure's eighty three over fifty four," Suzie announced, and both doctors cursed.
"Get four units of O neg in here, now!" Lopez ordered.
"Warm it up," Levi added.
"And find out type specific," Lopez finished. "Kid's left pupil's blown and non-reactive," he informed Levi.
"That's the least of his problems," Dr. Levi said as she looked at the monitor Valerie hooked the patient to. "Heart rate's forty one, he's bradycardic."
"Get that blood in here!" Dr. Lopez cried. "This looks nasty. Kid's got a goose egg in the front and I think this could be a skull fracture in the back," he said. "Get me some more saline, his head's a mess," Lopez muttered. "We need to get him to MRI, see how bad the damage is."
"Not as bad as him bleeding to death here," Levi countered, "The MRI could wait, get me twenty cc's of dopamine," she ordered.
"If you push the dopamine, I can't get him to MRI," Lopez argued. And then the monitor started beeping.
"He doesn't need an MRI, kid needs to get in the OR," Dr. Levi countered. "Damn it, he's going into hypovolemic shock," she said. "Set up another two units of blood. Warm it up to a hundred."
"What the hell happened to him? How'd he lose this much blood this fast?" Dr. Lopez asked, moving quickly to help Dr. Levi staunch the flow of blood and start another IV feed.
"I don’t know," Valerie said. "He said it was his brother's blood."
"And you didn’t check?" Dr. Levi snapped at her.
"We're swamped today," Valerie protested, "A kid tells me he's not hurt, I'm not gonna push it."
"Wait, when did he get here?" Dr. Lopez asked.
"About an hour ago," Suzie supplied and Valerie glared at her.
"You're telling me this kid's been bleeding to death sitting right here at the hospital?" Dr. Levi snapped.
"He said he wasn’t hurt," Valerie said defensively.
"Well, that's a law suit waiting to happen," Lopez muttered. "Damn it, his pressure's not going up. I need some more…" His words cut out at the sharp, flat tone of the monitor. A look up at it showed a straight, flat line.
*iz evol*
Previouslies: 1 >> 2
Disclaimer: I own neither Supernatural nor its characters.
Rating: PG13 so far. Might be R later, but I doubt it.
Pairings: None.
Characters: Dean, Sam, John, Pastor Jim, OCs.
Wordcount: 3220.
Warning: Grammar (unbetaed!), liberal use of medical medications and effects.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Sometimes you think you made the right call, only to realize you've made a really big mistake...
eeeeeeffffff
Chapter Three
The rain had let up a bit by the time Dean pulled up to the hospital entrance. Sam had been silent for a while now, and Dean was freaking out.
He got out of the car and just stood there a second, shocked by the cold. If he'd thought it was cold inside the impala, the outside was a freaking freezer.
Opening the back door, Dean cursed. Sam was curled in on himself, eyes closed, skin far too pale. There was so much blood everywhere. "Sam? Sam, c'mon, we're here," Dean said, shaking in the cold. "Sammy, please, open your eyes, okay? Just open your eyes," Dean begged, but his little brother remained motionless.
Shielding his eyes from the rain, Dean searched the hospital entrance for someone who might be able to help him, but found no one. Apparently, the rain and the cold drove even the smokers back inside the building.
"Sam, please," Dean urged, but to no avail. "Damn it," he muttered, his breath fogging the air, and leaned into the car, hissing in pain as his ribs protested the movement. He sucked in his breath and tried pulling his brother out of the car. Everything got white-hot for a few seconds, and it took Dean a few seconds more to remember to breathe.
He leaned heavily against the car, heart racing with fear. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and shivered, trying to figure out what to do. He couldn’t carry Sam, that was made painfully obvious, but he didn’t want to leave his brother here. He needed someone to go call for help, but there was no one around. Not even a freaking stray dog.
Time was quickly running out. There simply wasn’t any time left to start weighing the pros and cons. He had to get Sam inside, get Sam some help, and right the hell now.
His mind made up, Dean closed the car door, leaving Sam inside, and headed for the hospital entrance as fast as he could.
"Somebody help me!" Dean cried as the automatic doors opened and closed behind him. He was stunned silent for a second when a wave of heat hit him, making him dizzy. The emergency room was loud and overcrowded - a sharp opposite to the snowy night outside. Some people looked his way as he came in - mostly patients - but no one actually moved to help.
"Oh, screw this," Dean muttered under his breath and pushed his way towards the front desk. "I need help! Somebody freaking help me!" he yelled.
That got him some attention, mostly from security though. It did seem to help as the security guy - bless his soul - practically grabbed a nurse and pushed her Dean's way.
"I need help!" Dean's voice cracked at the end and he pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose to stop the room from spinning.
"Of course," the nurse said. She put a hand on his shoulder. "You sit right here, honey. Let me take a look at you."
It took a couple of seconds for her words to sink in, and Dean figured, with all of Sam's blood all over him, no wonder she thought he was the one bleeding to death. He pushed back when she tried to make him sit.
"No. No, no, no, you don’t get it," Dean said, "It's my brother. He's bleeding to death, and I can't carry him here."
The nurse took a closer look at him, her eyes narrowing. "Your brother?"
Dean nodded, "Outside, in the car!" he cried, frantic. "You gotta help him! Please, you gotta help him!"
The nurse studied him for far too long before she finally turned back and called out for help. Dean led them out to the car, opened the back door for them, and man, Sam looked even worse if that was at all possible.
"You gotta save him," Dean choked, "He's my brother, you gotta save him!"
"It's alright. It's okay, kid. Move out of the way so that we can do our job," someone said, and Dean was gently pushed aside.
He watched, wide eyed, as someone got in the car with his brother and started yelling and ordering people around. It seemed like a second later, Sam was on a gurney, new bandages pressed into his stomach to try stave off the bleeding.
No one was paying Dean any attention anymore. Everyone was busy with Sam, and that was just the way Dean had wanted it. All these doctors and nurses tending to his brother - surely Sam would be alright.
He'd gotten Sam to the hospital. They could fix him here. He'd be alright. He had to be.
Dean followed the medical personnel inside, his legs moving without him really registering it.
"You have to stay here," someone said and stood in his way.
Dean blinked. "What?"
"You can't get in there. You have to stay here," the nurse repeated.
"But… My brother!" Dean protested.
"The doctors are working on him now. You don’t want to get in their way, do you? They need to work on your brother. You'll only be in their way."
Dean shook his head, panting. Black spots appeared before his eyes, but he ignored them. "But…"
The nurse gently moved him over to the front desk and handed him a clipboard and a pen. "Best thing you can do for your brother right now is fill these up," she said succinctly.
"No, but…"
"Fill these out," the nurse repeated. "You want to help your brother? Fill out the paperwork," she said, and then left him standing there.
Dean stared at the clipboard in his hand, and then looked up at the double doors his brother had been wheeled through, and back to the clipboard again.
He could help Sam if he filled the paperwork, that nurse said so. He couldn’t help him by going behind these double doors; Sam was unconscious, Dean would just be in the way. But he could fill out the paperwork. No one knew Sam's medical history better anyway. He could do that, to help his brother.
Dean sighed, closing his eyes for a few seconds. He had to practically force them open, and he shook his head to clear it. Sighing again, Dean looked around.
The waiting room was full of people, many of them standing up for lack of chairs. He let out a breath and ran his fingers through his wet hair. He was so tired.
Behind him, someone called out a name and a Hispanic woman holding a toddler got up from a seat in the corner, not far from him. Dean blinked. No one seemed to rush over and take a seat, and he was so damn tired. Not that a hospital chair would do his aching back any favors, but still.
It wasn’t until he sat down that Dean realized his hands were shaking. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and looked at the clipboard again.
He frowned.
The words made no sense whatsoever.
He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, and opened them again, trying to focus on the small print.
Patient name. That was easy. Sam. Sam… Huh. Dean couldn’t remember the alias they used on the insurance card. He bit his lower lip, trying to remember, but he was just so damn tired. He wrote down Sam, hoping their Dad at least kept their first names.
The second line on the form was all scrambled; words that made no sense at all. He found a few empty lines and wrote 'allergic to sea food', not even caring if it was in the right place or not.
His head had been pounding ever since he woke up in the mud. It had gotten even worse after that first driver blinded him with the headlights. He just had to rest his eyes for a minute, just a minute, and then things will clear up. He'll be able to fill out the form, help Sammy. He just had to close his eyes for a couple of minutes was all.
It was just pure luck that his chair was in a corner. He pushed it even closer to the wall and sat back down, letting his heavy head rest against the wall and at least lessen the chance of a wicked crick in his neck later.
Not that that was likely to happen in the two minutes he rested his eyes, but still. He was so tired…
eeeeeeffffff
Valerie got out of the busy exam room and tossed her bloody latex gloves in the bio hazard bin. There were too many doctors and nurses in the room for her to be of any help, and there were too many people out in the waiting room waiting for help.
It was only half past midnight and already this seemed like the shift from hell. Not that she didn’t expect it to be - they knew it would be tough the moment they heard the weather report. Three days of rain, with the temperature constantly dropping. The newscast might as well have said three days of MVAs and kids with the flu. God, she hated winter. And new shoes. Comfortable from the first step her ass.
Valerie went into the nurses' lounge and grabbed herself a cup of coffee. It was running low, she noticed, but she just didn’t have the energy to make some more. She did slip a couple of bucks into the cookie jar they used as a piggy bank.
Every week or so, one of the staff members was in charge of buying some decent coffee, and they all chipped in to get it. Wasn’t too cheap, but it was damn worth it, especially on nights like these.
She considered taking her shoes off for just a couple of minutes, maybe massage her feet for a little while, but just then Amber popped her head in the room and told her to get her ass in gear because they were swamped. Sighing, Valerie poured her coffee into a Styrofoam cup and got out of the lounge.
The waiting room was loud and overflowing, just as it had been for hours now, but before she could attend to these patients, she had some unfinished business to see to first. She grabbed a pair of scrubs from the clean scrubs pile and started looking around for the kid from earlier.
He'd been a mess - half his face covered in blood from a cut in his cheek, his clothes covered in mud and soaked in rain and his brother's blood. Kid needed out of those clothes before he caught pneumonia. Maybe if she cleaned him some, she could get a resident to stitch him up.
Finding him in all that crowd though; that was first thing on the list. And apparently, it wasn’t all too difficult after all. The boy seemed to have left breadcrumbs in his wake. Or rather, a bloody boot print - the left one - going all the way from the hall to the waiting room.
Freddie wasn’t going to like this, Valerie thought.
Freddie was the hospital janitor. Well, one of a few, at least, but Freddie had been with the hospital since it opened, and he was still here even though he officially retired three years ago. Said it gave him something to get out of bed for after his wife Edna had passed away.
Following the bloody prints, Valerie found the boy sleeping in a chair in one of the corners. His eyes were closed, head lolling to the side, resting against the wall. There was the beginning of a dark puddle forming under his chair, and Valerie was sure Freddie wasn’t going to approve of that, especially on such a busy day. Freddie had always prided himself on keeping a clean hospital.
Crouching next to the boy, Valerie gently removed the clipboard from his lax fingers and went over the papers. She frowned. It wasn’t even half filled. Just a name and the patient's allergies where the medical history should have been written. No contact information, no insurance details.
Valerie looked up at the sleeping kid again. He must have been exhausted, she thought. Scared out of his mind by his brother's injuries. She sighed. He looked awfully young himself; maybe seventeen years old, and with no parent to be seen around here. Possibly left to babysit his brother.
She had to fight the urge to clear the hair away from his face. Instead she let out a breath and shook his knee. "Hey kid, wake up," she said, "I brought you some dry, clean clothes to change into. Last thing you want is to get sick, right?" She asked, but the boy kept on sleeping.
She really ought to call his parents. His brother's injuries were serious, their parents should be here to take care of him, take care of them both. Hell, this kid might be suffering from nothing more than a bad cut to his cheek, but he was paler than the walls around him, his freckles standing out in sharp contrast.
Valerie touched the boy's hand. It was ice cold. He really had to get out of those wet clothes. Maybe she could get him some of that teeth-rotting, super sweet cocoa from the machine on the third floor. It'll warm him up if nothing more. Make his dentist happy, too.
"Come on, son. Time to wake up now. We need to call your parents, get some more information so we could help your brother," Valerie said, giving his arm another shake. "And you really should change into something dry," she added, but got no reaction.
Valerie's frown deepened. "Kid? You with me?" She asked, slapping him gently on the cheek. And still got no reaction.
She shifted into a more comfortable position, putting the dry scrubs on the floor, and took another look at the boy.
A closer look.
She wasn’t looking at a patient's brother anymore; she was looking at a very pale and unresponsive teenager, who was soaking wet, freezing cold, and with blood all over his clothes.
There was blood all over his clothes.
His brother's blood. Or so he'd said.
Tentatively, Valerie reached for the boy's shirt, lifting it up. The denim was stiff, and that was never a good thing. It also resisted being lifted - at least until the puncture wounds became all too clear, and started bleeding twice as much.
Valerie cursed out loud and reached over to check for a pulse. She cursed yet again. "Suzie, Malik, I need a gurney over here! And get Dr. Lopez, too," Valerie cried out.
"Oh, damn it," she snapped as she turned her head just in time to catch the limp body that nearly slid out of the seat in front of her. And then she noticed the dark red stain on the wall.
She hated herself a little when her first thought was that Freddie was not going to be happy about the blood stain on the wall. But still. Freddie was a nice old man, and getting blood off the walls was never an easy task.
Valerie gently prodded the back of the boy's neck and tried her best to smother another curse when her hand came back covered in blood and mud. "Because you're not in enough trouble as it is, are you kid?" Valerie muttered to herself and fought the boy's dead weight until her coworkers arrived with the gurney.
"Here, let me help," Malik offered, and both he and Suzie helped Valerie wrestle the unconscious boy onto the gurney.
"Careful with his head," Valerie cautioned.
"Let's put him in six. I think that's open," Suzie supplied, and they wheeled him off towards the exam room.
"What's wrong with him?" Malik asked as he helped move the unconscious teen to the exam table. "Beside all the blood, I mean."
Valerie looked up at him, and then back to her patient. "I don’t know," she admitted.
"Where are his parents?" Suzie asked.
"I don’t know. I don’t think they're here," Valerie said, putting a fresh pair of latex gloves on. "He brought his brother in a while ago. The kid in two?"
"The one with the slashed abdomen? That was almost an hour ago," Malik said.
"Just go get someone before this kid bleeds to death!" Valerie snapped at him.
"What's going on in here?" Dr. Levi asked and Valerie flinched at her tone. She hated working with Dr. Levi. The woman was a brilliant physician, but a total bitch to have around.
"We don't know yet," She said, not looking at Levi. She made quick work at taking the boy's boots and wet socks off and cutting his bloody clothes. "Looks like several stab wounds to his lower abdomen. He's lost a lot of blood."
"Temp's ninety seven," Suzie supplied, and Valerie nearly breathed in relief when Malik walked back in the room, closely followed by Dr. Lopez.
"Get some warm saline right away," Dr. Levi instructed, and Malik nodded and left to get it.
"Blood pressure's eighty three over fifty four," Suzie announced, and both doctors cursed.
"Get four units of O neg in here, now!" Lopez ordered.
"Warm it up," Levi added.
"And find out type specific," Lopez finished. "Kid's left pupil's blown and non-reactive," he informed Levi.
"That's the least of his problems," Dr. Levi said as she looked at the monitor Valerie hooked the patient to. "Heart rate's forty one, he's bradycardic."
"Get that blood in here!" Dr. Lopez cried. "This looks nasty. Kid's got a goose egg in the front and I think this could be a skull fracture in the back," he said. "Get me some more saline, his head's a mess," Lopez muttered. "We need to get him to MRI, see how bad the damage is."
"Not as bad as him bleeding to death here," Levi countered, "The MRI could wait, get me twenty cc's of dopamine," she ordered.
"If you push the dopamine, I can't get him to MRI," Lopez argued. And then the monitor started beeping.
"He doesn't need an MRI, kid needs to get in the OR," Dr. Levi countered. "Damn it, he's going into hypovolemic shock," she said. "Set up another two units of blood. Warm it up to a hundred."
"What the hell happened to him? How'd he lose this much blood this fast?" Dr. Lopez asked, moving quickly to help Dr. Levi staunch the flow of blood and start another IV feed.
"I don’t know," Valerie said. "He said it was his brother's blood."
"And you didn’t check?" Dr. Levi snapped at her.
"We're swamped today," Valerie protested, "A kid tells me he's not hurt, I'm not gonna push it."
"Wait, when did he get here?" Dr. Lopez asked.
"About an hour ago," Suzie supplied and Valerie glared at her.
"You're telling me this kid's been bleeding to death sitting right here at the hospital?" Dr. Levi snapped.
"He said he wasn’t hurt," Valerie said defensively.
"Well, that's a law suit waiting to happen," Lopez muttered. "Damn it, his pressure's not going up. I need some more…" His words cut out at the sharp, flat tone of the monitor. A look up at it showed a straight, flat line.
*iz evol*
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