Chuck Logan - Absolute Zero

The rear door jerked opened and a woman, a man, and a haggard Allen Falken reached in. The woman wore jeans under her plum-colored smock. Allen and the man wore hospital blue. Broker and Shari helped them lift Sommer’s stretcher and transfer it onto a wheeled gurney cart.

In the flurry of movement, Allen looked at Sommer, then called to Milt who did not respond. He turned to Broker.

“Milt said the lump went down an hour ago. Sommer felt better, then he got delirious,” Broker said.

Allen shot a look at the other man. “We’re up shit’s creek for time if he perforated; where the hell’s that anesthetist?”

“She’s coming.”

Then Allen, who seemed taller now, commanded Broker. “You’ve got to get another gurney and load Milt yourself, the storm caught them at shift change and they’re way understaffed. C’mon people, let’s hustle,” he urged everyone as Brecht, the nurse, and the paramedic rushed Sommer up a ramp, through heavy swinging doors, and into a corridor.

Iker followed them, returned with a gurney, and helped Broker load Milt. Sam the driver stayed behind the wheel, talking into a snarl of static on his police radio.

They wheeled Milt into a small equipment-packed alcove with two treatment tables on the right. Shari came down the hall and supervised while they heaved Milt on the table. Then she waved them away and cut off Milt’s wet clothes.

Broker followed Iker down the hall and focused on a wall poster that diagramed potential fishhook accidents and the proper first-aid procedures. Dizzy at the heat in the building, he steadied his arm on a wall, and saw that his cheap wristwatch was still running. The time was 9:45 A.M. They had dumped in the storm a little before eight yesterday morning. They’d left the camp on the point at ten. Getting Sommer out had taken fifteen minutes shy of twenty-four hours. Broker’s knees started to wobble. He’d been traveling on rough water, bouncing in rougher air. Now he was having trouble finding his land legs.

Up ahead, they had Sommer in the hall in front of an elevator surrounded by bristling carts stacked with monitors and a tangle of IV lines and electrical cords.

“Where’s Amy, goddammit?” Brecht yelled. “It won’t be pretty if we have to cut this guy without her.”

“We paged her. She’s coming.”

Sommer screamed as Allen, Brecht, and the nurse freed him from the rigid stretcher in a coordinated surge and discarded it along with the soaked sleeping bag. His eyes rolled, gumdrops of sweat mobbed his face. “HURTS GODDAMN HURTS!” he screamed.

“You’re okay, Hank,” Allen said. “You’re in a hospital. We’ll take good care of you.” Metal shears flashed in his hand as he cut away Sommer’s clothes. The material disappeared in a blue cyclone of activity as electrical leads attached to rounds of tape were thwacked into place on his bare chest. Bumpy trace lines jumped on a cardiac monitor.

“FUCK YOU HURTS!”

“He’s delirious. He can’t hear you,” Brecht said to Allen. Then he called out to Judy, “Get STAT CBC with diff and lytes. I’ll get a blood pressure. Start two large-bore IV’s antecubital and run them wide open,” Brecht slapped on a blood-pressure cuff and pumped it up while the nurse strung liters of saline IV and popped catheters in the hollows of Sommer’s elbows.

Broker watched Allen take a stance astride the crisis. Hair askew, still unshaven from the trail, he was a rougher version of his usual self. He has to be beat , thought Broker. I sure am .

“This guy NPO?” somebody yelled.

Broker turned at the bright female voice and matched it to a young woman with straight-ahead posture who jogged down the hall in jeans sticky with snow stuck to her knees. She shook more snow from her hair, cast off her jacket, and caught a blue smock the nurse tossed to her. She had large gray eyes under tawny, pale blond hair, no makeup, and freckles dotted her cheeks.

Brecht nodded at Allen. “Amy, Dr. Allen Falken.”

“When’s the last time he ate?” she asked.

“Not since midnight, right?” Allen craned his neck around the huddle of medics and queried Broker.

Broker nodded. “That’s what Milt said.”

“Is he allergic to any medicine?” She asked.

“Is it. .?” An out-of-place guy peered over their shoulders. He wore a white shirt, loose collar, tie unknotted, and his face sagged, blotched with concern.

“It’s bad, Mike,” Brecht said as he probed Sommer’s lower abdomen gently with his palm. Sommer thrashed and screamed.

“Jesus,” Mike said.

“It’s the real deal. Like a burst appendix.”

“You’ve done an appendix,” Mike said.

“I stabilize and ship south. My thing is your kid’s ear infection. This is way over my head. We have to open his abdomen and do a small bowel resection.”

“Don’t lecture me, I know what it means,” Mike hissed in a trapped voice, a hospital administrator treading in his worst nightmare. Lawsuits circled his furrowed brow like a halo of hungry sharks.

“He’s gotta do it,” Brecht said, jerking his head toward Allen.

“Let me think,” Mike said.

“No time to think,” said Amy, the new arrival.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mike countered.

“Means you’re going to have a lot of paperwork to do if this guy tips over because you shipped him,” she continued. “There’s EMTALA, there’s a blizzard. We have a licensed surgeon on board and a guy who’s septic with a perforated bowel. Not cool, Mike.”

“Amy’s right, we try to ship him, he will fucking die.” Brecht bit off each consonant for emphasis.

Mike turned to Iker, who shook his head. “I won’t put him back out in that weather. No way.”

Lastly, he looked at Allen who waited a beat and called it: “We open that belly or he’s dead. Make a decision. Fast .”

“Okay.” Mike hitched up his belt, squared his shoulders, and nodded to Allen. “Take him downstairs to the OR and scrub in. But Amy-I want all your stuff in recovery in case we have to reintubate. I mean, syringes full, everything. No one’s going to say we weren’t on top of this.”

Then Mike saw Broker and Iker standing there leaking puddles of lake water and ice melt. He cleared his throat and motioned to the paramedic. “Shari, get these guys something dry to wear.”

As they retreated back toward the garage, Broker watched Brecht, Amy, and the nurse shove the gurney toward the open elevator. Allen walked last, his hands held high, poised. Amy bent over Sommer, worked his jaw between her hands, opened his mouth, and looked into his throat. “Oh shit, this guy’s got an airway from hell,” she said merrily.

“But you can intubate him?” Allen asked.

“I can intubate him anywhere, anytime,” she shot back, a little cocky, a little high on the action.

The elevator doors closed behind them.

Milt lay in the ER room cubbyhole draped in a floral-patterned hospital smock with an IV in his arm and an ice pack on his swollen right shoulder.

“That smock had to be recycled from Martha Washington’s drapes,” Broker said. He was feeling good. Tired as hell but good.

“Oh please ,” Shari groaned. Then she bent over Milt and said, “You probably tore a muscle and went into spasm in the plane.”

“I’d rather break a bone than tear a muscle,” Milt said as his eyelids fluttered and he struggled to stay awake.

“I hear you,” Shari said.

“Hank?” Milt asked, drifting.

“Allen is operating,” Broker said.

“For the report, what happened out there?” Iker asked.

Milt twitched, a modified shrug. “Straight-line winds dropped on us. Worst water I’ve seen on a lake. Hank had a hernia and he paddled his ass off. That’s when he blew his gut. He and Broker swamped. Broker pulled him out.” His eyes rolled toward Broker. “Guess he got his adventure to write about,” Milt said, smiling weakly.