The Fixer

48

He wasn’t able to move.

“Stay still, sir,” a voice said.

“No… no…” Rick moaned.

Someone was doing something to his left arm. He tried to pull his arm away but it wouldn’t move. Then he remembered vaguely a baseball bat colliding with his hand and rendering it useless.

Someone else was jabbing something sharp, a pin or a needle of some kind, into his other arm. He was aware on some level that it hurt, but he was in such a world of pain that one more hurt barely registered.

A second voice, a woman’s, said, “Say your name. What’s your name?”

Rick Hoffman, he may have said, or maybe he only thought it.

“BP one hundred palp,” said the first voice, a man’s voice, high and nasal.

“Out… out…” Rick said. He was trapped in something, he now realized. Or on something. His entire body was frozen in place, and he struggled with all his strength to get free.

“Big poke again,” said the woman.

“Ahh,” Rick groaned.

“You get it?” the man said.

“He feels that,” the woman said. “There’s the flash. Good IV.”

“Here’s your liter,” the man said.

Rick saw faces coming in and out of focus, in and out. “Run it wide,” the woman said. “You still with me, sir?”

Rick moaned some more and tried to tell them to leave him the hell alone.

The faces were gone now, and he could see blue sky, and then it began to move, and he saw shadows and a dark shape of some sort and he didn’t know where he was, somewhere inside now, not outside, and everything had gone dark, and he was gone.

A couple of people stood over him now. They wore yellow paper gowns. One of them said in a low, hoarse voice, “Gimme the story.”

A familiar voice-a man’s voice, high and nasal-said, “Thirtysomething male assault. Unwitnessed but the person who called 911 said something about ‘bats.’”

Rick was moving, rolling. He passed through glass doors that slid open on his approach. One of the people in the yellow paper gowns, alongside, said, “Sir, what’s your name, sir?”

Rick said his name again.

“What’s he saying?”

“Been that way the whole time.” The woman’s voice from before. “GCS maybe ten. BP one hundred palp. Pulse 120s.”

He finally understood he was in a hospital. He saw beds with patients lying in them, uniformed nurses ducking out of the way, then there was a tight turn and he was in a large space, bright and hectic, filled with people.

“Easy on my count.” The low, hoarse male voice. “One-two-three.”

He was lifted high up into the air, then down.

“No other medical history,” the nasal voice said. “He’s not talking much. We got a liter going.”

Now he was aware of several people looming above him, men and women. They were making him dizzy. He let his eyes fall shut. Now all around him was a hubbub, yammering indistinct voices, and everything had gone dark.

A man’s voice: “Field line in the right AC. Liter up.”

A woman’s voice: “Open your eyes, sir! Tell me your name.”

Obediently, Rick opened his eyes. He said Rick Hoffman but what came out sounded more like brick house. His mouth wasn’t working right. It hurt when he tried to speak.

“Sir, do you remember what happened?” the woman said.

Rick saw the woman’s face, looked into her eyes. He tried to nod.

“Don’t move, sir,” a man said. “Got a second line, eighteen gauge left AC.”

“Okay,” the woman doctor said, “protecting his airway for now.” She had a stethoscope in her ears and was putting the diaphragm end of it on his chest. Meanwhile someone was cutting his shirt open with a large pair of shears. “Bilateral symmetrical breath sounds.” Her voice was low and husky.

A new voice now. Male. “On the monitor-BP 108 over 64, pulse 118, sats 92 percent.”

“Good peripheral pulses all around,” said another voice.

“Show me a thumbs-up,” said the woman. “Give me a squeeze…”

Rick tried to squeeze her finger, which she’d put in his left hand, but just moving it was ungodly painful.

“He’s not following commands. Sir, can you wiggle your toes?”

Rick obediently wiggled his toes.

“Guess not,” someone said.

The woman said, “Okay, two liters up, CBC and trauma panel.”

“You want some fent?” a man asked.

Some piece of equipment rolled up alongside his bed. He felt something cold and gelatinous being squirted onto his chest.

“Fifty of fent to start,” the woman said. “You still with me, sir? Open your mouth. Wide.”

Something cold and metallic, he assumed it was a probe, was moving in small circles on his chest.

Rick obeyed, or thought he did. He moaned. His jaw was incredibly painful but only when he opened his mouth to breathe or talk. His chest and stomach ached terribly. He moaned again.

“No pericardial effusion, good cardiac motion,” someone else said. A young man. “Multiple abrasions and bruises over the chest wall.”

“Ahhh,” Rick moaned. He gasped in pain.

“Sorry,” said the young man. “Good sliding motion on the lungs, no pneumo.”

“Got a big lac over the left parietal scalp,” the husky-voiced woman said. “Stapler.”

“No blood in Morison’s pouch. Left paracolic gutter dry.” The young guy.

The woman: “Let me have twenty of etomidate and 120 of succs ready in case we have to tube this guy.”

“Already got it,” a woman said.

The young guy: “He’s pretty altered; you should tube him.”

The woman: “Sir! Say your name.”

Rick tried again to say his name, but this time it came out as Off me.

The woman: “Sir, I have to put a tube in your throat to protect you. Do you understand? We need to put you to sleep for now.”

I don’t want a tube in my throat, Rick tried to say. That’s totally unnecessary.

“FAST is negative,” said the young guy. “Call the scanner and let them know we have a tubed blunt head on the way.”

Something glinted-a blade of some sort? The doctors and nurses seemed to shift position around the bed. A baby or a kid was crying nearby.

“RT here?” asked the woman.

“He’s here,” someone said.

Someone ran past with a heavy tread. He heard a hissing noise. Then somebody put a mask, loudly hissing, over his face.

“Sats going up ninety-six.”

“Okay,” the young male doctor said. “Push the etomidate, then the succs.”

“I got your tube,” the husky-voiced female doctor said. “You do C-spine.”

“Okay.”

“Drugs are in.”

“Sir!” said the woman doctor. “Sir! You’re going to feel sleepy now. Just relax, just go to…”