Richard Mabry: Code Blue

Her rescuer freed one hand and thumbed the latch on the passenger side door of his pickup. He turned to bump the door open with his hip, then deposited her gently onto the seat. "Rest there. I'll call 911."

Cathy leaned back and tried to calm down. His voice sounded familiar. Was he one of her patients? She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes, but the image remained cloudy.

The man pulled a flip-phone from his pocket and punched in three digits. "There's been a one-car accident."

She listened as he described the accident location in detail-a mile south of the Freeman farm, just before the Sandy Creek Bridge. This wasn't some passerby. He knew the area.

"I need an ambulance, a fire truck, and someone from the sheriff' s office. Oh, and send a flatbed wrecker. The car looks like it's totaled."

"I don't need an ambulance," Cathy protested.

He held up a hand and shushed her, something she hadn't encountered since third grade. "Yes, she seems okay, but I still think they need to hurry."

Cathy heard a few answering squawks from the phone before the man spoke again. "It's Will Kennedy. Yes, thanks."

Will Kennedy? If she hadn't been sitting down, Cathy might have fallen over. She scrubbed at her eyes and squinted. Will? Yes, it was Will. Now even the shape of his body looked familiar: lean and muscular, just the way he'd been- No. Don't go there.

Will ended his call and leaned in through the open pickup door. "They'll be here in a minute. Hang on."

He took a clean handkerchief from the hip pocket of his pressed jeans and gently cleaned her face. The white cotton rapidly turned red, and Cathy realized that the blood had not only clouded her vision. It had masked her features.

"Will, don't you recognize me?"

He stopped, looked at her, and frowned. "Cathy?"

"Yes." There were so many things to say. She drew in a ragged breath. "Thanks. I appreciate your stopping."

He gave her the wry grin she remembered so well, and her heart did a flip- flop. "I'd heard you were back in town, and I wondered when you'd get around to talking to me. I just didn't know it would be like this." He paused. "And forget about telling me not to have them send an ambulance. I don't care if you are a doctor now, Cathy Sewell. I won't turn you loose until another medic checks you."

Cathy opened her mouth to speak, but Will's cell phone rang. He answered it and walked away as he talked, while she sat and wondered what would have happened if they'd never turned each other loose in the first place.

As the ambulance sped toward Summers County General Hospital, Cathy wondered what kind of reception she would get there. Who would be on duty? Would they acknowledge her as a colleague, even though she hadn't been given privileges yet? When her thoughts turned to recent events, she forced herself to shut down the synapses and put her mind into neutral.

The ambulance rocked to a halt outside the emergency room doors. Despite Cathy's protestations, the emergency medical technicians kept her strapped securely on the stretcher while they offloaded it. Inside the ER, Cathy finally convinced her guardians to let her transfer to a wheelchair held by a waiting orderly.

"Thanks so much, guys. I'll be fine. Really."

At the admitting desk, the clerk looked up from her computer and frowned.

"Cathy?" She flushed. "I… I mean, Dr. Sewell?"

"It's okay, Judy. I was Cathy through twelve years of school. No reason to change." Cathy looked around. "Who's the ER doctor on duty?"

"Dr. Patel. He just called in Dr. Bell to see a patient. Dr. Patel thought it might be a possible appendix." She lowered her voice. "Dr. Bell took one look and made the diagnosis of stomach flu. I couldn't see the need to call in another doctor for a consultation, but Dr. Patel is so afraid he'll make a wrong diagnosis." She pursed her lips as she realized her mistake of complaining about one doctor to another.

"Just be sure Dr. Patel doesn't hear you say that." Cathy tried to take the sting out of the words with a wink, but the blood dried around her eyes made it impossible. "Can you call him? I've been threatened with dire punishment if I don't get checked out."

Judy reached for the phone.

"Don't bother, Judy. I'll take care of Dr. Sewell myself."

Cathy eased her head around to see Marcus Bell standing behind her. He wore khakis and a chocolate-brown golf shirt, covered by an immaculate white coat with his name embroidered over the pocket.

This was a trade Cathy would gladly make-finicky Dr. Patel for superdoc Marcus Bell. In the three years he'd been here, Marcus had built a reputation as an excellent clinician. He was also undoubtedly the best-looking doctor in town.

"Let's get you into Treatment Room One." Marcus steered Cathy's wheelchair away from the desk. "Judy, you can bring me the paperwork when you have it ready. Please ask Marianne to step in and help me for a minute. And page Jerry for me, would you? Thanks."

Cathy had been in treatment rooms like this many times in several hospitals. Now she noticed how different everything looked when viewed from this perspective. As if the accident and the adrenaline rush that followed hadn't made her shaky enough, sitting there in a wheelchair emphasized her feeling of helplessness. "I feel so silly," she said. "Usually I'm on the other end of all this."

"Well, today you're not." Marcus gestured toward the nurse who stood in the doorway. "Let's get you into a gown. Then we'll check the extent of the damages."

Marcus stepped discreetly from the room.

"I'm Marianne," the nurse said. Then, as though reading Cathy's mind, she added, "I know it's hard for a doctor to be a patient. But try to relax. We'll take good care of you."

Marianne helped Cathy out of her clothes and into a hospital gown. If Cathy had felt vulnerable before this, the added factor of being in a garment that had so many openings closed only by drawstrings tripled the feeling. The nurse eased Cathy onto the examining table, covered her with a clean sheet, and called Marcus back into the room.

"Now, Cathy, the first thing I want to do is have a closer look at that cut on your head." Marcus slipped on a pair of latex gloves and probed the wound.

Cathy flinched. "How does it look?"

"Not too bad. One laceration about three or four centimeters long in the frontal area. Not too deep. The bleeding's almost stopped now. We'll get some skull films, then I'll suture it." He wound a soft gauze bandage around her head and taped it.

Marcus flipped offhis gloves and picked up the clipboard that Cathy knew held the beginnings of her chart. "Why don't you tell me what happened?"

At first, Cathy laid out the details of the accident and her injuries in terse clinical language, as though presenting a case to an attending physician at Grand Rounds. She did fine until she realized how close she'd come to being killed, apparently by someone who meant to do just that. There were a couple of strangled hiccups, then a few muffled sobs before the calm physician turned into a blubbering girl. "I'm… I'm sorry." She reached for a tissue from the box Marcus held out.

"No problem. If you weren't upset by all that, you wouldn't be normal." Marcus took an ophthalmoscope from the wall rack and shined its light into her eyes. "How's your vision?"

"Still a little fuzzy-some halos around lights. I figured it was from the blood running into my eyes."

He put down the instrument and rummaged in the drug cabinet. "Let's wash out your eyes. I don't want you to get a chemical keratitis from the powder on the air bag. I'll give you some eye drops, but if your vision gets worse or doesn't clear in a day or so, I want you to see an ophthalmologist."

"Oh, right." The fact that she hadn't thought of that underscored to Cathy how shaken she still was.