The Nurse

Chapter 1 - Jasmine The night was brutal. The long hours are always bad, but tonight was especially...horrific. There was a twelve car pile-up over on the interstate between Richmond and Allerton. The whole area had to be closed off with traffic redirected, and from what I heard right before I left, they still hadn’t cleared up the backed-up traffic. But none of that was why it was awful for me. The traffic wasn’t important, though I was grateful for the heads up. That was why I was driving on the backroads towards home, even though under normal circumstances it would be twice as long as my normal route. No, instead it was the c*****e from the wreck that had tainted my, already long, day at work. When the ambulances brought them in, I was both sickened and horribly relieved to find that only about ten of the eighteen passengers involved had survived long enough to actually make it to the emergency room. It was a wicked thought, but I knew that the fewer we had, the better our odds of saving them were. And I wouldn’t feel responsible for having to pick which ones we could and couldn’t save. My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, so tight that my knuckles were turning white. I’d managed to keep the tears at bay, resolving to keep it together until I got home, but it was getting harder and harder. I could see the blood covering their clothing, clothing I cut away to reveal the oozing wounds. The blood was so dark it looked black, arterial instead of the bright red, superficial scraps most people thought of. I took the right up ahead. I wasn’t as familiar with this road as I was with the interstate or the ones nearer to my house, and it was dark, too. It made it harder to see and to be sure that I was going in the right direction. “I need to get that damn GPS fixed,” I muttered. I didn’t use it often, but I could have done with it tonight. The problem with these backroads was that they weren’t very well lit, and I couldn’t see street signs until I was practically on top of them. “s**t,” I told my windshield when I realized that I’d just passed the street I needed to turn off on. I needed to turn around. Slowing down, I checked my rearview mirror and the road ahead of me. When I was sure that no one was coming—though really, who the hell would be out at one in the damn morning on some back road in the middle of nowhere—I pulled a sharp left, making a u-turn to head back the other direction. But there wasn’t quite enough room to turn around completely, and I had to choose between sliding into the ditch and backing up a little. Not comfortable with the idea of backing up on a road, even with it being this dead, I was getting ready to just half slide into the ditch to get the extra room when my lights hit something. Or, more specifically, someone. I slammed on the breaks, grateful I’d been going slowly. For a moment, I just stared out the window, eyes wide. The body was unmoving, and I felt knots twist in my stomach. Oh God, please don’t let him be dead, I thought. I’d seen enough death today—c*****e like most people only saw in the movies. Now to find a body along the side of the road after work? I just didn’t think I could handle that. Shoving the car into park, I reached, with shaking fingers, for my phone and pepper spray, just in case. The guy looked unconscious at the very least, but I’d seen enough horror movies and watched the news often enough to know that I had to be careful. Swallowing harshly, I started to dial the police as I got out of my car. I had the pepper spray in one hand while I held the phone up to my ear with the other. I wanted to go ahead and get the paramedics en route in case he was alive, and I wanted to make sure that I had someone on the line that could come to my rescue in case this was some elaborate setup. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” The dispatcher was a woman with a nasally voice that sounded extremely bored. If I had to guess, she was one of those women who had done this job so long that the terrible things she encountered on the job no longer affected her like they should. I worked with more than a few people like that at the hospital. It was a terrible thing to see, but I understood it. Sometimes it was just too much. And if you let it get to you, eventually you would burn yourself out. I was always teetering on that edge, threatening to spill over into a mental breakdown if I wasn’t careful, but I’d always managed to pull myself out of it just in time. A vacation. A night out on the town. A romantic night out with my gay friend, because I knew there was no risk of “something more” ever happening. Just something to take my mind off of all the terrible stuff I was seeing so regularly. “Hello?” the woman asked, her voice taking on a note of impatience. I realized that I hadn’t said anything yet. Swallowing, I said, “Yes, hello. My name is Jasmine Ferrara. I’m a nurse over at St. Mary’s. I was driving home and came across a man along the side of the road. I’m stopped now between Richmond and Allerton, closer to Allerton. I’m going to check to see if he’s alright, but if you could please send someone to help, I’d be really grateful. We’re on the backroads.” I paused after explaining the situation, waiting for the bored woman to shift into alert mode and ask for more specifics. I was trying to pick out a sign somewhere. I’d missed my turn not far back, so I could give her that, at least. I was hoping for a mile marker to be more exact, but I didn’t see any. Moving closer to the man—I hoped it wasn’t just a body—I saw the glint of metal not far from where he lay. A motorcycle, I realized, which made me a little nervous. If he was riding a motorcycle, then there was a good chance that he had an accident and swerved off the road. And those kinds of accidents were bad. “Please be alive,” I muttered and moved quickly down the edge of the ditch. When I reached the bottom, I moved to check the man for injuries. I had to either give up the phone or my mace to do so effectively, so I shoved the pepper spray into my coat pocket. Fumbling with my phone, pinching it between my ear and my shoulder, I realized two things quickly. First, the man was alive. I could see him breathing, though his breaths were shallow and uneven. Second, the woman on the other end of the phone still hadn’t responded to me. Frowning, I pulled my phone away from my ear and looked down at it. It was dead. “Oh, hell!” I tried to turn it back on, but of course, that was pointless. What was worse, I had no idea how much the dispatcher had gotten of my statement when I’d first called. Had she gotten any of it? And even if she did, she probably hadn’t picked up on enough to be able to locate me or the man who was breathing shakily. That’s not good, I thought, frowning at his prone body. I glanced back at my car and considered if it was a better idea to go back for help——and ensure that I was safe in case this went bad—or to stay and see what I could do for him. Though my own survival instincts screamed at me to leave, I found myself kneeling down beside the man in the ditch. I was a nurse, and I wouldn’t leave an injured man behind. If I had to, I’d haul him up and into my car. I felt his forehead first. He felt a little warm but not too bad. He might have had a fever, but I didn’t think it would be enough to do any real damage, so long as I got him fixed up and out of here soon. Looking him over, I confirmed it must have been a bad motorcycle accident. Blood coated his arms where the fabric of his jacket had been torn through. His face was scraped up badly, bits of asphalt imbedded into his skin. It was swollen, too, and I worried he might have fractured his jaw or cheek. Unfortunately, it was difficult to tell, and I wasn’t about to massage his face to find out. He needed X-rays. Pulling away his jacket, I let out a small gasp. His arms and face looked bad, but they didn’t look problematic. People survived those sort of wounds, even if they were painful. But his chest was another matter. It looked like he had shrapnel lodged into his stomach, part of it still sticking out. Dark blood was trickling from the wounds. It wasn’t gushing, which was probably the only reason he was still alive, but it was definitely moving quickly. The blood wasn’t clotting enough to stop the flow. It was worse still because the embedded shrapnel couldn’t be taken out without increasing the flow of blood. If I tried to remove the metal, he could have bled out. But leaving them in for too long was a bad idea, too, especially since I wanted to try and wrap up the wound in an effort to stop the blood. “s**t,” I muttered. I shrugged off my jacket and laid it across the worst part of the wound. He had cuts all over him, but the left side just beneath his ribs was the worst of it. I was hesitant to apply too much pressure, lest I force the bits of metal further into him, but I had to get the blood to slow. I ended up laying it over the whole thing, then gently pressing over small parts a little at a time with the tips of my fingers. When I felt something hard, I stopped and moved to the next spot. It wouldn’t be tight enough to really stop the bleeding, but it would slow it enough that the blood might be able to start clotting. It would give him time. When that was pressed in as best it could, I left him. I raced up the ditch back to my car, which was still running. I pressed my hazards quickly, realizing that if someone didn’t see me, I could cause my own special accident. And I’d had about enough of that tonight. I took a quick moment to search for the power cord for my phone, but I couldn’t find it. I had probably left it at home; I was really bad about that. I’d just have to clean him up as best I could, and if I could get him stable enough, I’d try to move him. Like I can lift someone that size! He wasn’t the biggest man I’d ever seen, but he wasn’t small, either. He was probably six feet, at least, and had noticeably large biceps, like he worked out regularly. Which meant that even though he was trim, he would be heavy. Muscle weighed a lot more than fat. Still, maybe if I could roll him onto something, I could move him... I went to the trunk of my car and dug through it until I found the emergency first aid kit. There were bandages, antiseptic, scissors, and ibuprofen. There were other things in there, too, including an emergency space blanket. I hoped I wouldn’t need it, but if I couldn’t get him into the car, I’d wrap him up in it and drive like hell to the hospital to get help. With the kit in hand, I grabbed a couple bottles of water, and then I hurried back down the ditch. The man was still breathing, which was a good sign, but I noticed that my brown coat was stained heavily with deep, dark red blood. There was a lot more of it than I’d hoped. Definitely not a good sign. “Hold on,” I muttered as I came to a stop beside him. Opening up the kit, I grabbed the scissors and cut open his, already torn, shirt. Pulling the fabric away revealed an array of wounds. Some were minor abrasions but others were deep. The gash that was causing the biggest problem was about two inches wide and looked like it had come as a result of jagged metal being drug along his side. I frowned. Was this from a motorcycle accident? I was used to car accidents, and this sort of wound wouldn’t have been uncommon but that was because the metal siding could get bent and torn. Sometimes the human body moved in just the right way to catch it, and the result was a gash much like this. But motorcycles didn’t have siding like that, and riders tended to slide off quickly, letting the motorcycle continue to move rapidly away from them. Sometimes it didn’t work like that, but it still was unlikely to happen in such a way. I found myself glancing quickly around to see if there was another car, but I didn’t see anything. A hit and run? I wondered, except I would think the other car would be wrecked if it did this. Who drives away with torn up car siding? Returning my focus to the man, I reminded myself that it didn’t matter right now. It was all about saving his life. I could get the details from him then. I pulled off my over shirt quickly, grateful that I’d worn a tank top beneath it. I laid it on the ground beside me to keep at least a semi-clean workspace. Pulling out flat cotton bandages, I grabbed the cotton gauze, too, and laid them on my shirt to the side. Then I pulled out the cotton balls and the rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. The peroxide wouldn’t help the wound heal, but it would force oxygen through the wound and help to bring any dirt or foreign particles to the surface. Hopefully, that would keep it from becoming infected. I started with that, pouring it over the wound. Instantly, the bloody mess fizzed and turned white as oxygen raced through the wound. It cleared it out. I watched as puss and bits of gravel and small metal flecks escaped the opening. When it looked like the peroxide was done, I unscrewed the cap to the first water bottle and rinsed it off. I tried to use it sparingly, but there was a lot of blood. I managed to get most of the wound clean, though. Next, I grabbed the alcohol. Tipping over the bottle, I poured a generous amount onto the bandages beside me. I would rather they were dry, but I needed the extra disinfectant. The peroxide was better for dislodging the debris I knew would be in the wound, but the alcohol was a stronger antibacterial agent. I was hoping that the combination of the two would be enough to keep the wound from getting infected before I got help. I’d pretty much come to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to be able to get him into my car—not by myself. When the bandage was damp with the alcohol, I gently placed it over the wound. The blood was still flowing pretty freely, so I pressed as hard as I dared. I knew there were still larger pieces of metal imbedded in the skin, and I didn’t want to make that part worse, but I needed to stop the blood. That had to take priority. With the bandage in place, I started to wrap the gauze around his stomach to keep the bandage from moving too much. Easier said than done, I found. I tried to move him onto his side in an effort to get the gauze around him and underneath, but he was heavy. I ended up worming my hand beneath him with the edge of one strip until I could meet it on the other side with my other hand. I did this several more times until the bandage was as secure as it was going to get. It took longer than I would have liked. With that at least slowed, I moved on. I checked the rest of his body. I cleaned up cuts along his arms and his face, which was badly swollen now. If the swelling was on the outside, that was actually better. If it was in his head, nothing I did right now mattered much. He’d die before I ever got him to the hospital. Moving on, I felt along his shoulders and neck. It was difficult to tell whether or not he damaged it significantly, but I couldn’t risk that he had. I had to run back to my car, but I found a neck brace there. It was the cushy kind rather than the more effective sort that strapped across your forehead, but given the circumstances, this would have to do for now. Finally, I pulled out the space blanket and laid it out over the top of him. Wrapping the gauze around his middle had told me all I needed to know about moving him, that I wasn’t going to be able to. Which meant I needed to get my butt out of here and to the hospital as quickly as possible. Or to a phone. Just to get someone out here. With any luck, what I’d been able to do for him now would keep him alive until an ambulance could arrive. If we’d been closer to the city or the main roads, I could have tried flagging someone down. But out here in the middle of nowhere at almost two in the morning...well, there wasn’t going to be anyone on these roads tonight. At least, that was what I thought until I scrambled up the side of the ditch to the road and saw the headlight speeding down the road towards me. “I don’t believe it,” I muttered. Maybe we were saved after all. *