me. I can’t believe it never even occurred to that woman to –’
He was interrupted by the loud squeal of the ER radio. They both looked up as the transmission came crackling through.
‘Knox Hospital, this is unit seventeen, unit seventeen. We have gunshot victim en route, ETA five minutes. Do you copy?’
One of the nurses darted out of the treatment room and snatched up the microphone. ‘This is Knox ER. What’s that about a gunshot wound?’
‘Multiple victims en route. This one’s critical – more on the way.’
‘How many? Repeat, how many?’
‘Uncertain. At least three –’
Another voice cut into the frequency. ‘Knox Hospital, this is unit nine. En route with gunshot wound to the shoulder. Do you copy?’
In panic, the nurse grabbed the telephone and hit O. ‘Disaster code! Call a disaster code! This is not a drill!’
Five doctors. That was all they could round up in the building during the frantic moments before the first ambulance arrived: Claire, DelRay, McNally from the ER, a general surgeon, and one terrified pediatrician. No one knew any details yet, not the location of the shooting, nor the number of victims. All they knew was that something terrible had happened, and that this tiny rural hospital was not prepared to deal with the aftermath. The ER turned into a maelstrom of noise and activity as personnel scrambled to prepare for the injured. Katie, now stabilized, was whisked out and shoved into the hallway to free up the treatment room. Cabinets clanged open, bright lights flared on. Claire pitched in to hang IV bags, lay out instrument trays, and rip open packets of gauze and sutures.
The approaching wail of the first ambulance brought a split second’s hush to the ER. Then everyone surged out the double doors to meet the first victim. Standing among that crowd of personnel, Claire heard no one speak; they were all focused on the swelling scream of the siren as it drew near.
Abruptly the siren was cut off and the flashing red light swerved into view.
Claire pushed forward as the ambulance backed up to the entrance. The vehicle’s rear door swung open, and the stretcher rolled out with the first victim. It was a woman, already intubated. The surgical tape used to secure the ET tube obscured the lower half of her face. The bandage on her abdomen was soaked with blood.
They rolled her straight into the trauma room and slid her onto the table. A confusing chorus of voices was shouting simultaneously as the woman’s clothes were cut away, the EKG leads and oxygen lines connected, a BP cuff wrapped around one arm. A rapid sinus rhythm raced across the cardiac monitor.
‘Systolic’s seventy!’ a nurse called out.
‘Drawing the type and cross!’ said Claire. She grabbed a sixteen-gauge IV catheter off the tray and snapped a tourniquet around the patient’s arm. The vein barely plumped up; the patient was in shock. She stabbed the vein with the IV needle and slid the plastic catheter into place. With a syringe, she withdrew several tubes of blood, then attached the IV tubing to the catheter. ‘Another lactated Ringer’s going in, wide open!’ she called out.
‘Systolic’s sixty, barely palpable!’
The surgeon said, ‘Belly’s distended. I think it’s full of blood. Open that surgical tray, and get suction ready!’ He looked at McNally. ‘You’re first assist.’
‘But she needs to be in the OR –’
‘No time. We have to find out where the blood’s coming from.’
‘I’ve lost her BP!’ a nurse yelled.
The first incision was swift and brutal, one long slash down the center of the abdomen, parting the skin. With a deeper incision, the surgeon cut through the yellow layer of subcutaneous fat, and slit into the peritoneum.
Blood spilled out, streaming onto the floor.
‘I can’t see where it’s coming from!’
The suction wasn’t clearing the blood fast enough. In desperation, McNally stuffed two sterile towels into the abdomen and pulled them out again, soaking red and dripping.
‘Okay, I think I see it. Bullet nicked the aorta –’
‘Jesus, it’s gushing!’
A ward clerk yelled through the doorway, ‘Two more have arrived! They’re wheeling them in now!’
McNally glanced across the table at Claire, and she saw panic in his eyes. ‘You’re it,’ he snapped. ‘Go, Claire.’
With her heart in her throat, she pushed out of the trauma room and saw the first stretcher being wheeled into one of the treatment rooms. The patient was a sobbing red-haired boy, shirt cut away, blood soaking through the bandage on his shoulder. Now a second stretcher whisked in the door – a blond teenage girl, half her face covered with blood.
Children, she thought. These are only children. My god, what has happened?
She went first to the girl, who was crying but able to move all her extremities. At that first glimpse of blood on the girl’s face, Claire nearly panicked, thinking: gunshot wound to the head. She forced herself to pause and take the girl’s hand, to calmly ask her name, even while her own heart was thundering. It took only a few questions to confirm that Amelia Reid was fully oriented, and her mental status was clear. The wound was just a superficial graze of the temple, which Claire quickly cleaned and dressed.
Turning her attention to the red-haired boy, she saw that he was already being attended to by the pediatrician.
‘Are there any others on the way?’ she asked the ward clerk.
‘None en route. There may be more at the scene…’
A second surgeon arrived, trotting in through the ER doors and announcing: ‘I’m here! Who needs me?’
‘Trauma room!’ said Claire. ‘Dr McNally needs to be relieved.’
He was just about to push through the door when a nurse popped out, almost slamming into him.
‘Do we have that O-neg blood for Horatio yet?’ she yelled to the ward clerk.
Horatio? Claire hadn’t recognized the patient under all that surgical tape, but she knew the name, Dorothy Horatio.
My son’s biology teacher. She looked at the clock and saw it was eleven-thirty. Period three. Noah would be in biology – in Mrs Horatio’s class.
Another doctor arrived, another pair of hands – the obstetrician from Two Hills. She took one last glance around the room, and saw that the situation was under control.
She made the only decision a panicked mother could make.
She ran outside to her car.
The twenty-mile drive passed in a blur of autumn fields, the mist rising in wisps, stands of pine trees. Here and there farmhouses with tumbling porches. She had driven this country road every day for eight months, but never at this speed, never with her hands shaking and her heart sick with fear. She took the last rise with the accelerator floored and her Subaru leaped past the familiar sign:
You Are Now Leaving Two Hills. Come Back Soon!
And then, a hundred yards beyond that, a second sign, smaller, paint chipping.
WELCOME TO TRANQUILITY
GATEWAY TO LOCUST LAKE POPULATION 910
She swerved onto School Road and saw the flashing lights of half a dozen emergency vehicles. Police cruisers were parked in a jumble near the high school’s red brick front entrance, along with two fire trucks – a full-scale disaster response.
Claire abandoned her car and ran toward the school’s front lawn, where dozens of stunned-looking students and teachers had gathered behind a tangle of police tape. Scanning the faces, she didn’t see Noah.