Cedar Bluff's Most Eligible Bachelor (Cedar Bluff Hospital) Read Online Free PDF Page B

smashing. Doctors aren’t overly impressed with sickly patients.”
    “Good idea,” Christy said, with such enthusiasm Hailey knew the girl was starting to feel better.
    Barely three seconds after Christy Drummel had been safely discharged, Hailey’s trauma pager went off.
    She read the text message with a sinking heart.
    Male victim, MVC, pulse 130, BP 80/40, long extrication, suspected chest injuries. ETA three minutes.
     
    “Hailey?” she glanced up when Simon called her name. “We have a trauma on the way. Are you ready?”
    No. She wasn’t ready. But she nodded anyway, praying she wouldn’t throw up the way Christy had. “Of course.”
    Hailey finished with her other patient’s labs and then took her place in the trauma bay as the paramedics wheeled in the new arrival. The patient was a young seventeen-year-old male, who’d run his stolen car into a tree while being chased by the police.
    He’d been wedged inside the car, to the point where it had taken the firemen over forty-five minutes to get him out.
    The first glance at his pale and lifeless face made her blood run cold.
    Not Andrew.
    She kept the mantra running in the back of her mind as she concentrated on getting the new patient connected to the heart monitor. His vital signs were dangerously low.
    The monitor began alarming. “I’m losing his blood pressure,” she said sharply, with a worried glance at Simon.
    Simon looked up at the monitor, his expression grim. “PEA. Probably a hemothorax with his crushing chest injuries. I need a chest tube.”
    Hailey grabbed the chest tube tray at the same time Bonnie, the ICU tech, did. Bonnie stared at her for a moment, and Hailey readily let go, realizing setting up and assisting with the chest tube was something useful the tech could do.
    She vaguely heard Simon give Bonnie instructions on prepping the guy’s chest. She hung IV fluids and performed a quick assessment, noticing the young man’s abdomen was taut.
    Their patient rebounded as soon as Simon placed the chest tube. Bright red blood came pouring out, though.
    “Call Kane Ryerson,” Simon said to Bonnie. “This guy needs the OR.”
    Bonnie headed for the nearest phone, but almost immediately the patient’s blood pressure bottomed out again.
    “He’s bleeding into his abdomen,” Hailey said, watching in horror as the patient’s belly grew larger right before her eyes. “Simon? Do you see his belly?”
    “Yeah. We’re going to have to open him up here.” Simon didn’t look very happy with the prospect.
    She tugged the peritoneal lavage tray from the bedside, but before Simon could get the guy’s abdomen opened, his heart rate slowed and then stopped.
    “No!” Hailey shouted, unwilling to believe they were going to lose him. She climbed up on a stool to start chest compressions. One and two and three and four and five. Breathe. One and two and three and four and five. Breathe.
    We’re not going to lose him. We’re not. We’re not…
    “Hailey!” Simon’s sharp tone finally registered. She stopped CPR and glanced up at the heart monitor.
    Asystole.
    “It’s over,” Simon said quietly. “Time of death, six-forty-two p.m.”
    She thought she could handle it. But without warning her eyes filled with tears. “Excuse me,” she mumbled, nearly falling off the stool in her haste to get away.
    “Hailey!” she heard Simon shout behind her.
    But she disappeared into the staff lounge, shutting the door firmly behind her.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    S IMON followed Hailey as soon as he could, but by the time he arrived at the staff lounge she appeared to have pulled herself together. But her red, puffy eyes and stuffed-up nose betrayed how she’d been crying.
    “Are you all right?” he asked, concern in his voice. He took a step forward, instinctively wanting to offer comfort. What in the world had happened in there? Did she know the young man?
    “Yes. Sorry for running off,” she muttered, avoiding his gaze and moving to brush past