Page 67 of Asystole

Usually, I stay in the chopper while EMS loads the patient and my flight nurse gets to work, but with the weather the way it is, EMS isn’t here.

“I’m gonna need your help, Kirkland,” Helen says.

I appreciate that she didn’t compliment the landing. She knows the hardest part is yet to come.

Unclipping, I need help getting the door open. The wind is hell-bent on seeing me fail today.

And I might have considered letting it…until I saw the broken boy bleeding in the snow, his leg at an unnatural angle and his eyes closed.

It’s only when Helen yells, “Grab the AED! We don’t have a pulse!” that I get my ass in gear.

I pull a towel and the device from the back of the chopper and race over to her, dropping to my knees in the snow. The kid looks maybe eighteen, nineteen? Too young for this to be his last day on Earth, that’s for damn sure.

Helen is doing chest compressions as I grab the scissors from the kit and work around her to cut his shirt and jacket open. Sure, it’s twenty-two degrees out here, but hypothermia is survivable; not having a heartbeat isn’t.

I wipe his chest off as Helen gives two breaths.

Placing the pads on the right side of his chest and his left abdomen, I hit the button to analyze his heart rhythm and sit back as it advises a shock.

“Switch,” Helen says, calling for me to do chest compressions while she recovers.

We both know if we can’t get a heartbeat back before we load him on the chopper, he’s as good as dead.

Leaning my full weight into the compressions, I think back to the night Chase taught me how to do this on the floor. I don’t want to have to tell him I failed. I don’t want to have to tell this kid’s family I failed.

So, I double down, counting out loud, making sure the compressions are deep and steady, and the breaths take at least one second each.

After six agonizing rounds…three long-ass minutes, we get a heartbeat.

He’s not out of the woods, but he’s not dead yet, either.

Helen gets him loaded with the help of the trooper and the two other officers on the scene while I climb back up front, put my headset on, and get things ready for the return flight.

“Metro Dispatch, LF1449 lift off from scene 5:37, patient on board. Destination Boston Memorial Hospital. ETA twelve minutes.”

Because fuck this weather. This kid’s not dying today.

“LF1449 copy, lift off 5:37, patient on board. Destination Boston Memorial. ETA 5:49. Notifying trauma team now.”

“Roger that.”

Okay, Chase. Tag, you’re it.

Chapter 26

Chase

Not only am I taking extra call because I’m trying to look good by easing my co-residents’ burden, but I’m also on the team receiving the Life Flight patients today because one of my co-residents is out sick and another ran off the road and is waiting on a tow truck to pull him out of a ditch.

I came into the hospital at four this morning, and I was going to text Logan just to say hi and try to restore some normalcy, but when I say I hit the ground running, I mean there was smoke coming from my shoes. I’ve been literally racing through the halls all morning.

I’ve just caught my breath when the announcement rings through the hospital.

“Life Flight inbound. Trauma team, prepare. Five minutes to touchdown. Repeat: Life Flight inbound. Trauma team, prepare. Five minutes to touchdown.”

Those of us assigned to the trauma team stop what we’re doing and haul ass to gown up and get the gurney ready. The head nurse from the ED calls with the details the flight nurse has provided and relays them to us.

“Male in his late teens to early twenties. Snowmobile versus SUV. Patient had no pulse upon arrival. Was revived with AED and CPR. Suspected collapsed lung, femur fractures, and internal bleeding. OR six is prepped and ready.”