Morning in the ER

It was a quiet morning in the ER…Then the call came in. A police officer had been shot. Multiple gunshot wounds. Vital signs off the chart.

It was a quiet morning in the ER. A fifty year old man with chest pains. A ten year old girl with a broken arm. Another man needed stitches after falling from a ladder.

Then the call came in. A police officer had been shot. Multiple gunshot wounds. Vital signs off the chart.

We hurried to get ready and in a few minutes the doors slammed open, a gurney was rushed down the hall, the paramedic yelling stats. BP. Respiration. Heart rate. All bad.

We got the man out of the worn leather jacket, lifted him onto the table. Covered by the oxygen mask, I couldn’t see his face. All that was visible was a mane of dark curls. I cut off the blood soaked shirt while the doctor examined him, shouted instructions.

I turned to get something off the surgical tray and that’s when I saw him. A tall blond man standing just inside the door. Arms wrapped around his chest as if in physical pain himself, his face a death mask just staring at the man on the table. Outsiders aren’t allowed in the ER. I opened my mouth to yell at him to get out and that’s when he looked at me.

I’ve dealt with a lot of screaming crying family members, friends of patients. I’ve seen the fear, the hopelessness. But never ever have I seen such a look of anguish in anyone’s eyes.

“Connie, I need that chest tube. Now!” The doctor’s voice jolted me back to the situation at hand.

We worked on the officer for a long time before we were finally able to stabilize him. As he was wheeled to surgery, I looked for the blond man, but he had disappeared.

~~~

I have been a nurse in the ER for three years. I learned a long time ago that if I wanted to survive I had to detach myself emotionally from what happens here every day. I know how that sounds. I told a boyfriend that once and he looked at me like I was some kind of monster. I see too much pain, too much death. Too many victims of needless cruelty. If I didn’t distance myself, I couldn’t do my job. Without a doubt I’d go crazy.

That’s why I wasn’t prepared for my reaction to the morning’s scene in the ER. I was shaken, disturbed. And I didn’t understand why at the end of my shift I checked the hospital records. Starsky, David. Detective Sgt.

I breathed a sigh of relief. He’d survived the surgery. Then I did something else I’ve never done before.

“Hi, Connie. What are you doing here?” Doris is a friend of mine, we went to nursing school together, have coffee in the cafeteria.

“Just came up to check on a patient. David Starsky.”

“He’s in a coma. On the critical list.”

“Anyone with him?” I tried to sound casual.

“A blond man.” Doris motioned for me to lean close, her voice dropped to a whisper. “They just brought him up from recovery and he appeared out of nowhere. Don’t know how he knew Davy was here.” Doris has an annoying habit of reducing people’s names to childish derivatives.

“Is he still here?”

“Yeah.”

I tried not to show my surprise. Doris runs the ICU like it’s her own private kingdom. She may be only 5′ 2″ but she’s an equal opportunity bully. Doctors, nurses, patients–no one is safe. But she saves the worst tongue lashings for the visitors who dare stay two seconds past the prescribed fifteen minutes.

“He’s not in the way,” Doris grumbled.

“Where are they?”

“Room C.”

~~~

The room was dimly lit. Starsky laid flat, no pillows, his chest wrapped in white bandages. He looked small, defenseless.

The blond man sat in a chair close to the bed, his upper body hunched over, trying to see around the machines, the monitors, the tangle of wires and tubes connected to his friend. He was doing it again, the same unblinking stare I had seen earlier. What history do these two share? What was he thinking? What silent prayers were being said?

He didn’t know I was there. The world outside the room no longer existed. All his attention was focused on the man in the bed. He lifted his arm, reached toward the bed, hesitated, his eyes flickered over the machines. I swear I heard a small sob as his hand dropped back into his lap. His face crumpled and for a minute I thought he was going to cry. Then he looked heavenward, drew a deep breath as if gathering courage. Reached again and carefully, gently, covered Starsky’s hand. Greater than his fear was the need to touch, to reassure himself the other man was real, to offer comfort even if Starsky couldn’t respond. I blinked back the tears and quietly left.

~~~

The news was all over the hospital. Maria, the young intern, told me as soon as I came on duty. How Starsky had gone into cardiac arrest. How the doctor shocked him over and over. Nothing, flat line. How the doctor was ready to pronounce the time of death when Hutchinson–yes, the blond man had a name now–came racing down the hallway. How, as soon as he reached the room, Starsky’s heart began beating.

“The hand of God,” Maria said, making the sign of the cross.

People in the medical profession are a superstitious bunch. We know what the human body can endure. We know that we are not gods. That there is only so much we can do. That’s why when something unexplainable happens we look for answers just like everyone else.

With the wounds he sustained, David Starsky should have been dead before he hit the ground. He shouldn’t have survived the ambulance ride to the hospital. Or the surgery. Or the cardiac arrest.

Now, I don’t know the man. Maybe he is one of those people with an indomitable spirit that refuses to die.

Or maybe it’s a miracle just like Maria said.

But if you ask me I’d say it was love. In the eerie glow of the monitors, I saw the love in Hutchinson’s eyes. I felt it like another physical presence in the room. Saw it given form as Hutchinson caressed Starsky’s hand, as if by touch alone he could take away the pain, restore some of the life that was leaving him.

~~~

The hospital continued to buzz with Starsky and Hutch stories. There was another attempt on Starsky’s life.

One on Hutchinson’s. A shooting in the underground garage. Police overran the hospital. A command center was set up next to the ICU run by a Captain Dobey who, when he wasn’t bellowing loud enough to be heard throughout the entire building, looked as devastated as Hutchinson. There was even a rumor of a flamboyantly dressed character with the unlikely name of Huggy Bear roaming the halls with baskets of food. I figured that one had to be a figment of someone’s overactive imagination.

~~~

Two days after the shooting, Starsky awoke from the coma. And it seemed like everyone had a story to tell about Hutchinson’s reaction to this second miracle. The man changed from a grief stricken zombie into a giddy little boy, kissing nurses, sneaking food to his friend in the middle of the night. Of course, they got caught when they somehow activated the sprinkler system, but that only added to the legend of this duo.

~~~

Things calmed down after that. One evening I was in the elevator when who should get on but Hutchinson. He had a big dopey grin on his face and carried a teddy bear. He must have seen my amused look.

“This is for my partner,” he said, waving the teddy bear’s arm at me. “He’s going to kill me when he sees this. I bring him something every night. I know I’m spoiling him rotten but I can’t help myself.”

His face became somber. “I almost lost him.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes. The memory was still too fresh, too painful.

The elevator doors slid open and Hutchinson stepped out. The grin was back. “Starsk is going to kill me,” he repeated and actually giggled as if the prospect of dying at the hands of his friend was the most delightful thing in the world.

The teddy bear waved goodbye, the doors closed. And I was left thinking of something I had written many years ago in my diary. Nothing profound or earth-shattering. A thirteen-year-old is seldom touched by divine inspiration. But what was true then is still true today. After all is said and done, love is the greatest miracle of all.

End