Page 5 of Forced Into Your Arms
Within seconds, doctors, nurses, and paramedics came rushing through the employee entrance with a stretcher.
One of them slid beside me.
"Milan?"
I looked up.
"Nia…"
Her eyes dropped to my blood-covered hands before meeting mine again.
“What the hell happened?”
“I… I don’t know. They shot him.”
Nia didn’t ask another question.
“On my count,” she called out. “One… two… three.”
Together, we lifted him onto the stretcher before the team took off toward the emergency department. I didn’t stop to think about whether I should follow them or not… I just ran.
The automatic doors flew open before we reached them.
"GSW to the abdomen!" one of the paramedics shouted as we pushed through the emergency entrance. "Male, approximately mid-thirties. Pulse is weak. Pressure's dropping."
The controlled chaos I'd expected to walk into my first night hit me all at once.
Doctors called out orders before the stretcher even reached the trauma bay. Monitors beeped from every direction, stretchers rolled past carrying other patients while a nurse hurried to clear Trauma One.
I stayed beside the stretcher, keeping both hands pressed against the wound as we rushed toward the trauma room. Blood continued slipping through my fingers no matter how much pressure I applied.
“Keep that pressure on,” Nia called over the commotion.
“I’m trying.”
“No, you’re doing fine. Just don’t let up.”
I nodded and pressed harder as we pushed through the trauma room doors. Within seconds, doctors and nurses surrounded him, calling out instructions while somebody cut away what was left of his shirt and another nurse hooked him up to the monitors. The room moved fast, but everybody seemed to know exactly where they needed to be and what they needed to do.
I pulled on a pair of gloves and stepped closer. “What do you need me to do?”
Before anyone answered, a hand landed on my shoulder. I turned to find the charge nurse looking me up and down, her eyes stopping on the blood covering my scrubs.
“Who are you?”
“Milan Rivers.”
“The new nurse?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her expression tightened. “How’d you end up in here looking like that?”
“I was outside when it happened.”
Another nurse looked up from the other side of the bed. “She’s the one who was holding pressure on his wound before we got outside.”
Nia nodded without taking her attention off the patient. “She stayed with him the whole time.”
