Compulsion by Keith Ablow

Author:Keith Ablow [Ablow, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: thriller

The PICU was in crisis as I walked through its sliding glass doors. Nurses ran for IV bags, and John Karlstein barked orders from Tess's glass cubicle. Someone had pulled the blinds closed.

Julia was standing in a far corner of the central room, crying, as a nurse tried to comfort her. "Frank!" she yelled when we made eye contact. She ran to me. I held her, her chest heaving so hard she was barely able to speak. "She stopped… breathing. Tess… Please, God."

"Hang a tocainide drip," Karlstein ordered. An alarm sounded on the bank of monitors at the nurses' station. I looked over and saw Tess's tracing had gone flat. "Hold the drip. We're going to shock her again," Karlstein yelled. "Stand back!"

Julia crumpled in my arms. "No!" she pleaded. "Frank, please help."

I eased Julia into a seat by the unit secretary's desk, with no view of Tess's room, and motioned for the nurse. "Stay here," I told Julia, as the nurse arrived. "I'll find out what's happening."

I walked to the edge of the group of five or six figures huddled over Tess. She had been intubated, and one of the nurses was squeezing a rubber ambu bag to force air into and out of her lungs. Karlstein looked like a battlefield general, a towering figure amidst a tangle of hanging bags and bottles and rubber tubing, the paddles of the cardioverter still in his hands.

He glanced at me. "We've got a pulse," he said. "Maybe we got lucky."

Several members of the team nodded to themselves, drinking in that bit of reassurance. Unlike Karlstein, who still looked crisp, they were sweat-soaked, whether from working feverishly or standing so close to the abyss.

"Let's start that tocainide now," Karlstein said.

I noticed a full surgical tray had been opened at the bedside. I knew what that meant: Karlstein had been prepared to open Tess's chest and pump her heart by hand. I felt a surge of admiration for him.

"Try letting her breathe on her own," he said.

The nurse at the head of the bed untaped the breathing tube from Tess's lips and slowly pulled it out of her throat. Tess coughed, weakly at first, then more vigorously. Then she began to cry.

Smiles broke onto the faces of the men and women who had, at least for the moment, beaten back death.

"Strong work," Karlstein said. "Let's order in some Chinese. My treat. Just make sure we get plenty of those pot-stickers. Fried, not steamed." He walked out of the room and motioned for me to follow him. I did. He headed over to Julia, who was standing, wide-eyed, where I had left her. "Her heart's beating, and she's breathing," Karlstein told her.

Julia started to weep again. "Thank you so much," she managed. She leaned against me in a way that would have made it natural for me to put my arm around her-something I wanted to do, and would have done, were we somewhere else. When I didn't move to hold her, she straightened up.

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