Medical Error by Mabry Richard

Author:Mabry, Richard [Mabry, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Medical Error
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Published: 2010-10-31T22:00:00+00:00

Her first thought was that she had to get up. It must be morning. She wasn't sure what she had to do, but she was certain she was late. She started to roll out of bed, only to find that she couldn't move. She was strapped down. And the room was moving—rocking from side to side, bumping up and down. What was going on?

"Just take it easy, miss. Lie back."

The unfamiliar voice didn't reassure her. Just the opposite. She was in some sort of narrow room, and the sound of a siren seemed to be all around her. Where was she? And why couldn't she move? She opened her eyes but the light was dim. Everything was fuzzy, with halos and colored spots making it almost impossible to see anything clearly.

She heard a man's voice, the words faint and echoing as though issuing from a tunnel. "Easy there."

She tried to turn her head but met resistance. A wave of pain drove her back against the bed. What was going on?

"Don't struggle. We have you secured to a stretcher. Your neck's in a collar, in case you hurt it when you fell back on the concrete. Just relax and we'll have you in the Emergency Room in just a few minutes."

She strained to move, but when she flexed her right wrist she felt a sharp prick.

"You have an IV in your arm. Just lie back. We'll be at the hospital soon."

Why was he saying that? What was going on? Another effort to turn her head intensified pain that she thought couldn't get any worse. Her stomach began to churn. She lay back, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

"Can you tell us what happened to you?"

The voice was nearer. She opened her eyes, squinted, saw a man bending over her. He was wearing blue coveralls with some type of emblem on the chest. The nameplate over his breast pocket read "Tom."

"Tom." Her voice was raspy. She swallowed and tried again."What happened? Where am I?"

"Hold on. Let me check your vital signs again."

She felt something squeeze her arm to the point of pain, heard a mechanical whir. She bit her lip from the discomfort before the pressure was released with a low hiss. Tom nodded and made a notation on a clipboard he pulled from somewhere behind him. "Okay. Here's what I know. You apparently fell in the parking lot of Metro Labs. Looks like you hit the back of your head. Lost consciousness. One of the technicians stepped outside for a smoke, saw you, and called it in. We just picked you up, and we're headed to the Emergency Room."

"Hey, Tom." A metallic voice came through a speaker above her head. "Baylor's ER says they're swamped. If she's stable, I'm detouring to Parkland."

"Affirmative," Tom replied. "Let's do it."

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to concentrate. Her head felt as though an air hose was inflating it to three times its normal size. The pain increased with every beat of her heart.

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