Miracles in the ER by Robert D. Lesslie

Author:Robert D. Lesslie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

A Time to Be Born…

It was almost dusk, and the light was quickly fading. Its scattered beams penetrated the deep woods at the back of the ER parking lot and settled comfortably on a dogwood tree growing in a natural area near the ambulance entrance. The dogwood tree.

Camille Anderson was forty-two years old. You would never guess it if you got a close look at her. I wouldn’t. I thought she was in her mid to late twenties—thirty at the most. Her face and skin were radiant, set off by bright, sparkling eyes. And that constant smile, always outlined by bright-red, flawlessly applied lipstick.

“She looks like an angel,” one of her patients once remarked.

She might have been. One thing for sure, she was a great ER nurse—caring, observant, always helpful, and patient. Well, usually patient. She would occasionally let you know of her displeasure if she felt someone was being mistreated, especially if that someone was a child or an older person.

The angriest I had ever seen her was on a Sunday afternoon. This is almost always a busy time in the ER. After church, family members would visit their loved ones residing in “retirement” homes, find them in some worrisome state, and have them brought to the emergency department for an evaluation. Their primary-care doctors weren’t available and it fell to us to try to sort things out. Usually it was something simple and straightforward. Occasionally it was something worse.

On this particular Sunday afternoon, it was something worse. An elderly gentleman had been brought in by his children because of what they thought were some infected insect bites on his arms and legs. The staff of the nursing home had tried to cover these up with hastily applied bandages, but weren’t successful. The man’s son had seen the wounds and became suspicious when he received evasive answers from the staff. He put his father in the car and brought him to us to be examined.

“These are starting to get infected.” I leaned close and gently touched the skin surrounding these scattered pencil-eraser-sized marks. The elderly man didn’t say anything, but pulled his injured arm away from me. There were dozens of these wounds on his other arm and on his legs.

Camille was standing beside me. Her eyes were open wide and her bright-red lips were trembling. She knew.

“These look like cigarette burns,” I told the son. “And they need to be taken care of. I don’t think he should be going back to that retirement home.”

His son’s face turned a chalky white and his mouth fell open. “Cigarette burns? You mean someone has—”

Camille spun around and bolted out of the room. I knew where she was headed, and I also knew there were no retirement home staff members here for her to confront. They were fortunate.

A few minutes later, I walked over to the nurses’ station and overhead Camille’s telephone conversation.

“That’s right, Officer. This is the ER and we need someone over here right now to investigate an assault—abuse—whatever. Just get over here!”

She slammed the phone down, turned around, and looked at me.

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