Chapter 7 - The Emergency Triage
I didn't bother using the parking lot. I drove the car straight over the curb, smashing through the plastic holiday planters in front of the clinic’s emergency walk-in entrance, coming to a halt inches from the automatic sliding doors.
I threw my door open, sprinted around to the passenger side, and unbuckled Emma. Her convulsions had ceased, leaving her limp, pale, and completely unresponsive in my arms. Her breathing was dangerously shallow, a faint rattling sound escaping her blue-tinted lips.
I kicked the emergency sliding doors open with my boot, bursting into the clinic lobby.
""HELP ME!"" I roared, my voice bouncing off the linoleum tiles like thunder. ""SOMEBODY HELP US! SHE’S ECLAMPTIC! THIRTY-FOUR WEEKS!""
Within two seconds, the sterile quiet of the small facility shattered. Two triage nurses and a male physician in green scrubs sprinted through the double doors from the treatment bay, pushing a mobile crash gurney between them.
""Get her on the table! Right now!"" the doctor shouted, his face instantly grim as he took in Emma’s cyanotic lips and limp posture.
I laid Emma down on the thin mattress. Her head rolled limply to the side.
""Blood pressure cuff, stat! Get an IV line of magnesium sulfate started, four grams loading dose!"" the doctor barked, ripping open Emma’s coat and lifting her sweater with practiced urgency. He grabbed a fetal Doppler monitor, applying a blob of cold clear gel to her distended abdomen.
""Sir, you need to step behind the yellow line,"" a nurse said, placing two firm hands against my chest, shoving me back against the hallway wall.
""That's my wife!"" I sobbed, my hands covered in melting snow and sweat. ""She had a seizure in the car two minutes ago! She said the baby stopped moving! Please... please save them!""
The doctor pressed the small round wand against Emma’s belly, adjusting the volume dial on the wall-mounted speaker.
Static.
Hissing, hollow white noise filled the room.
The doctor moved the probe lower, near her pelvic bone. His expression was tight, his brow deeply furrowed.
Still nothing. Just the rhythmic shhh-shhh of static.
""Turn up the gain,"" the doctor muttered, sweat beading on his forehead despite the chill in the air.
I fell to my knees against the tile floor, clutching my hair, pressing my forehead against the cold baseboard. Please God. Take me. Take everything I have. Take my business, take my life, take every breath I have left. Just don't take them. Don't let my stupidity kill them.
Then, faint and distant through the speaker, came a sound.
Thump-thump... thump-thump... thump-thump.
It was fast, like the fluttering wings of a trapped hummingbird, but it was steady. A fetal heartbeat.
""Fetal heart rate is one hundred and ten, it’s bradycardic,"" the doctor said, looking directly up at the charge nurse. ""Placenta is failing under the vascular resistance. We can't wait for a transport chopper in this blizzard. She'll seize again, and the baby won't survive the next drop in oxygen. Prep the minor procedure room. We're doing an emergency crash C-section right here, right now.""
""Doctor, we don't have a pediatric NICU team on site today, it's just general staff—""
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""If we don't deliver this baby in ten minutes, we're losing two lives instead of one,"" the doctor snapped, unlocked the gurney’s wheels, and began sprinting down the hall. ""Move!""
As the gurney disappeared through the swinging metal doors labeled SURGICAL RESTRICTED, Emma’s pale, lifeless hand slipped off the edge of the mattress, swaying gently back and forth until the double doors swung shut, locking me out in the silence of the corridor.
