Lisa Scottoline: Save Me

Rose shouted to the female paramedic, “She was trapped in a bathroom full of smoke. That means she was deprived of oxygen. How do you know if there’s brain damage?”

“I’m doing everything I can.” The female paramedic grabbed a transparent saline bag, hung it on a hook, and reached for Melly’s hand, glancing over at Rose. “Sorry, may I have her hand? I need to start an IV line.”

“Sure.” Rose let go of Melly’s hand, trying not to tear up. She held onto her stretcher instead, watching the female paramedic tapping Melly’s skin to find a vein, then sliding the IV needle in, with a speed born of skill and practice.

“I’m dressing your burn now.” The male paramedic unrolled yellow dressing and wrapped it around her ankle, keeping his balance in the moving ambulance. “It doesn’t look too bad.”

“Do you think my daughter has brain damage?” Rose shouted at him, through her mask. “Is that why she’s unconscious?”

“Don’t worry, the docs will do everything they can. Reesburgh is a great trauma center. Our job is to get her ready, so they can hit the ground running.”

Rose could see they needed to work, so she shut up and kept an eye on Melly while the male paramedic finished dressing the burns on her ankle. The female paramedic was wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Melly’s arm, but Melly’s eyes were still closed, and she didn’t move or react. A layer of coarse soot blanketed her face, arms, and legs, obscuring the Gothic lettering on her Harry Potter T-shirt and the flowery pattern of her shorts. A deep gash bled through her hairline, blackening its dark blond strands. Her eyelids looked swollen, and tears made heartbreaking tracks in the filth on her cheeks.

“Here, Mom,” the male paramedic said, offering her a Kleenex.

Rose hadn’t known she was crying. She nodded thanks, swabbing at her eyes, and the Kleenex got damp and sooty. The female paramedic blocked Melly from view, and the male paramedic dressed the burn on Rose’s hand. She looked around the back of the ambulance, noticing things that didn’t matter:

The windows in the back doors were tiny. There were six round dome lights in the ceiling. The first-aid bag was orange, and the plastic defibrillator was yellow. A half-open cabinet held plush teddy bears, with the sales tags still on.

Rose felt a wave of sadness. She wouldn’t have expected to find toys in an ambulance, but she should have. Children got hurt every day in this world. Now it was her child, and her world.

Her gaze fell on a chart posted above eye-level. It read, EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES FOR CHILDREN, and she found the line for School Age, 6-12 Years. It read, Respiratory Rate, 18-30. Heart Rate, 70-120. Systolic Blood B/P, Over 80. She looked over at the monitors attached to Melly, displaying her vital signs in multi-colored digits, but she wasn’t able to decipher them.

She looked at the other wall, but there was only another chart. PEDIATRIC ASSESSMENT, said the top, and underneath, GLASGOW COMA SCALE. She read the three criteria for a coma. Eye Opening, Best Verbal Response, and Best Motor Response. The chart assigned point values to each of the criteria, and she applied the criteria to Melly, like a nightmare laundry list. Melly’s eyes remained closed. Zero points. She had no verbal response. Zero points. She had no motor response. Zero points. Melly had no points. Zero, zero, zero.

Rose felt a bolt of fright. New tears filled her eyes. She craned her neck but couldn’t see Melly. The female paramedic was bent over her, lifting her eyelid and shining a light in her pupils.

Rose kept her fingertips on the stainless steel of Melly’s stretcher. The male paramedic dressed the burn on her hand. The female paramedic shifted position, and Melly’s hand popped into view. Blood and bruises covered her little palm, and Rose realized that Melly must have bloodied her hands, banging on the bathroom door. Trying to get out. Pounding with her fists. Waiting to be rescued. Calling for her mother.

Mommy!

Rose wanted to scream at herself. If she had run to the handicapped bathroom first, Melly would be fine now. It was a matter of time, of minutes and seconds. Of oxygen deprivation to the brain. Of points on the Glasgow Coma Scale. Why had she spent those minutes on Amanda, and not on her own daughter? Why had she chosen to save Amanda over Melly?

She held tight to Melly’s stretcher. Any mother would have saved her own child. So what if Amanda was standing closer? What difference did that make? What was she thinking?

Rose wiped her eyes. She’d thought she hadn’t chosen, but she had, and she’d chosen wrong. She loved Melly more than life. If Melly didn’t come through this, she would never forgive herself. She could never justify it to herself or Leo. He was Melly’s stepfather, but he loved her like his own. He’d been her only father since she was four, when her father died. A wave of guilt washed over Rose, and she felt as if she were drowning in it, going under.

The ambulance raced down Allen Road. The hospital was only twenty minutes away. She tried not to count the seconds. The male paramedic finished treating the cut on her cheek. Her chest felt tight. She wasn’t even sure she was breathing. She could only pray.

“Here we are, good luck!” The male paramedic hurried to the door, the ambulance lurched to a stop, and everything else happened in a blur. The back doors of the ambulance opened into the blinding sun, and the paramedics hurried Melly’s stretcher out of the back, with Rose right behind, with portable oxygen. The legs on the stretcher snapped down, and they were all running to the entrance of the emergency department, where the doors slid open and a crowd of medical personnel fluttered to them like angels, bearing Melly away.

Rose didn’t let go of her until the very last minute.

Rose slumped in a cushioned seat, alone in the empty waiting room. Smoke clung to her damp clothes and hair. Her throat felt dry, and her eyes smarted despite the drops they’d given her. Melly had been in one of the ER examination rooms for half an hour, and still no word. The doctors hadn’t wanted to discuss Melly’s condition until they’d examined her thoroughly, and Rose had been sent to the waiting room after the nurses had cleaned her up and given her a tetanus shot. She’d left her purse and cell phone in the car, so she’d used the hospital phone to call the sitter, who’d said she could stay with John until tonight, if needed.

Rose sighed, telling herself to stay calm. Framed prints of generic pastures covered the pastel blue walls, and the sun streamed through the windows, whiting out the screen of the muted TV. She didn’t bother picking up the wrinkled copies of People, Time, or the other magazines on the coffee table. She watched idly as dust motes floated through a shaft of sunlight, rudderless. A pot of stale decaf sat in a Bunn coffeemaker on a side table.

Her gaze fell to her lap. Her right hand was freshly bandaged, and the left had residual soot etched into the back of her hand, black and thick as ground peppercorns. She flashed on Melly, covered with the same grime, and imagined her beating on the bathroom door, calling out, like Amanda.

Mommy!

Rose got up and crossed to the bathroom, walking gingerly because of the bandage on her ankle. She closed the door behind her, using her good hand to flick on the light. A mirror hung over the sink, and in her reflection, she looked like a cleaned-up coal miner. Soot underlined her crow’s feet, the wrinkles under her eyes, and each nostril, like parentheses. A small cut on her left cheek glistened with Neosporin, and her forehead was as gray as a stormcloud. Her long, dark hair was a dirty mop, weighed down by dust, water, and filth.