After the Fall Read Online Free PDF Page A

needed to stay connected.
    The phone rang. And rang. Why wasn’t she answering? By now she’d be off in the cab, her purse nearby. Tim hung up. Tried again. Same result.
    How would Laura react to Fred Minn’s death? She respected him, admired his scientific discipline, enjoyed working with him on the Immunone clinical trials, but she wouldn’t consider him a personal friend, close enough to come back to Philly to attend his funeral.
How selfish can a guy get?
Tim chastised himself. Now that he’d finally declared his love for Laura, he wanted her beside him.
All the time
.
    He tried calling her on her mobile phone again. Same results. Nothing.
She must not have charged the battery
, he thought, as he gulped the last of the tepid coffee and headed to the shower.
    Then he heard someone pounding on his door.
    Tim opened the door, at first not recognizing the manwhom he’d just seen leaving, toting Laura’s suitcase. Gone was the friendly attitude, the easy smile. Replaced by a wild look of panic.
    â€œDr. Robinson, the woman who just left. She took a bad fall. I had my service call an ambulance. I left her out there. A neighbor’s with her. Thought you should know. I gotta get back down.”
    â€œLaura?” Tim asked, but the man was gone.
    Tim bolted after him, but the elevator had already left. He took the five floors of stairs at a run, sprinting through the lobby toward the automated front door.
    He dashed through the door the instant it opened and found himself facing a black town car surrounded by a small crowd. At first, he did not see Laura lying crumpled next to the passenger door near the rear wheel. Until a crimson red coat against the white snow caught his eye through the bent figures who’d gathered to observe a prone woman on the icy ground.
    â€œLaura,” he called out. “Are you okay?”
    A tall, middle-aged man in a sweat suit responded. “I stepped out of my building to check the weather, and I saw it happen. The woman reached for the back passenger door, and she went down. Hit really hard. I could hear the crack from over there.” He pointed to the door of the next building.
    Tim knelt at Laura’s side. She appeared to be curled up, asleep, on top of the two inches of fresh snow. Except for the rivulet of blood staining the snow beneath the right side of her head. When Tim looked closer, he could see that her right lower arm protruded at an awful angle. “Call an ambulance,” he shouted, forcing himself not to try to shake her awake. For a moment, even the trauma basics escaped him. The ABCs: airway, breathing, circulation.
    â€œDr. Robinson, I am so sorry.” The driver knelt beside Tim. “I told her I’d get the door, but I had to move some things around in the trunk, and she didn’t wait for me. Dispatch has an ambulance on its way. Should be here right away.”
    That was a good thing about living in Center City,Philadelphia. The ERs of four teaching hospitals all within minutes away.
    Tim heard a woman’s voice call out, “I hear the sirens now. Thank God.”
    So far, Tim had done nothing other than take Laura’s pulse at the right carotid artery in her exposed neck. Normal breathing, normal pulse. He wanted to turn her over, but was afraid to move her. What if she had a neck fracture? He was a pediatric cardiologist. His trauma experience dated back to medical school. He called her name. Nothing. She was out cold. Blood seeping out from under her head was expanding the red stain, but not at an alarming rate. Blood loss he did know how to assess, and this was minor.
    Tim, jacketless, was still kneeling beside her when the paramedics’ van pulled up. The female driver stopped behind the town car. Two male paramedics jumped out, one almost slipping on black ice obscured by fresh snow. The driver stayed inside behind the wheel as the two men pulled a stretcher out of the back, adjusted the height,