Saying What Needs to be Said

Chapter 9

"Hey Luka, can you take this guy?" Chen called down the hallway to her co-worker.

"I can't", he called back, "I've got another one coming in. Try Carter."

"He's gone upstairs." Chen sighed and looked around. Someone must be free.

There was an influx of patients coming from the building collapse and the hospital couldn't cope, especially with Susan and Abby gone. There was a crowd of very angry patients with minor injuries milling around the admit area, yelling abuse at the desk clerks and demanding to be seen immediately. They couldn't seem to understand that people were dying, they were just worrying about they're own problems. Everyone was out for themselves.

"Would someone please take this patient!"

"I'm free" said Kerry, who had just stepped out of the elevator, after taking another of the collapse patients up to ICU.

"Uh, Dr. Chen?" Malik called to her from the ambulance outside. "I think this guy's gonna need both of you."

Both doctors went outside to see what all the fuss was about. The guy was lying on the stretcher, screaming, being pushed into the ER by several paramedics covered in blood, frantically trying to stop any more blood from gushing out of a very large wound in his chest. They wheeled the very badly injured man into the trauma room and started to try and stop the intense flow of blood.

"We can take it from here." Weaver called to the two paramedics that hadn't left the room yet.

"No. We're no leaving!" called the female one, insistently. "He's our colleague!"

"He's a paramedic?" Weaver looked across at Chen with wide eyes and then back down at the critical patient lying on the table. His uniform was hardly recognisable, it was covered in blood and dirt.

"You really need to step outside. Gallant, could you?" Chen motioned to the med. student standing opposite her and he lead the way out of the room.

"What happened?" he asked the two people when they got outside.

"I don't know!" The male paramedic told him. "He heard a child crying in the wreckage. We told him not to go in, the warehouse was looking more and more unstable, but he insisted. He said he couldn't leave them in there!"

"Them?" Michael wanted to get to the bottom of what happened if it could help save this guy's life.

"Yeah, this blonde chick said there was someone else in there with the child. A woman I think. A nurse."

Gallant's eye's suddenly flashed with fear. It couldn't be could it?

"What did this woman look like? The blonde one?"

"She was a doctor."

"Oh my God," he said under his breath before apologising to the very confused paramedics and rushing back into the trauma room.

"Dr. Weaver" he yelled, getting very scared for his co-worker's safety. "I need to talk to you."

"Not now!" Kerry yelled back, getting very annoyed that her student had interrupted her, "I'm busy!"

He paused, wondering weather or not to jeopardise the life of a patient that he knew was in danger on a suspicion he had that might not be true. He decided that he had to say something. He stepped further into the room.

"I think Abby may be trapped."

Everyone paused momentarily and stared at him in shock, before Kerry reminded them they had a patient to save and they went back to work. Kerry stepped outside to find out for herself what was going on.

"How do you..." She didn't quite know what to say.

"They said there was a nurse trapped in the rubble." He motioned to the worried paramedics sitting a little way down the hallway. "Apparently she went in to save a kid."

"Oh God! I have to go and talk to them. Go find Carter!"

Gallant rushed towards the elevator and managed to catch it just before the doors closed. He headed up to the intensive care unit, knowing full well why it was Carter that Kerry so desperately wanted to find, and not just any doctor. How was he going break the news to him about what was going on?

Chapter 10

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