Guilty Bystander

From the first time I started that job, you made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  Discernment has been my gift and my curse, but back then I didn’t trust my instincts.  They hadn’t been tested and proven as they are now.

I found your little notes – the ones that seemed too warm, too friendly.

But I didn’t say anything.  Surely the sin was my own rapid imagination – nothing more.

Months wore on, and I watched you sneak off into the back warehouse with her.  More than once. And you two would stay in there for much longer than her allotted lunch break.

I kept quiet still.

You tried to be friendly with me after these afternoon rendezvous – as if you could convince me by sheer cheeriness that nothing was amiss.  I think you noticed how I shrunk from you over time, how your warmth only made me colder.

Her hair was longer than your wife’s, darker.  Perhaps she was a bit thinner, I never really noticed.  I always found her annoying – the way she would butt into conversations she didn’t belong in.

If only conversations were the extent of her intrusion.

You wife was not just my boss, she was my friend.  She gave me my first job, I worked under her as her business grew from a two-room operation to four rooms, then six, then extended across multiple locations.

And maybe that’s why it was so hard. I wanted to say something. I needed to say something. As time went on and you tested the boundaries with this co-worker of mine, I felt complicit. I felt dirty by association and not saying anything felt like a betrayal.

But you just can’t do that. You can’t just waltz up to your boss and accuse her husband of cheating. I mean, maybe you can. Maybe someone somewhere out there did it and it didn’t blow up in their face. 

But honestly, how was that going to end well for anyone? You made sure it wouldn’t end well the moment you decided to look. And touch. And whatever else.

So instead I quit. I made up some excuse about the drive being too far and after years of happy employment, I quit.

The look in her eyes when I told her I couldn’t be convinced to stay - I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. She didn’t just look like she was going to cry, she looked so tired and worn out, as if I was placing the final straw that would break her back.

I wondered then if she knew. 

A few months later you left her to be with this dark-haired former co-worker of mine. And she rebuilt her life without you.

But it still nags at me that you did all that, it bothers me that you put me in that impossible situation. 

Sin affects so much more than just those immediately involved. It destroys irrevocably and it plants doubt and regret that can last a lifetime.

But then again, I suppose that’s why we’re not supposed to do it in the first place.

DOI 09252019 MVA RGDMH1

I heard the code green come over the overhead pagers while I sipped soup in the cafeteria, but I resisted the urge to cut my dinner break short to go assist.

Back from lunch and Bianca’s annoyed.

“Well they don’t have a name and all they gave me is the year he was born, and you know how frustrating that is, and then they’re the ones who get mad at me for not having it already so you know what? I decided I’m not dealing with that.  So now he’s a DOE.  Maybe they’ll think twice about being so unhelpful next time.”

If it’s possible to sigh inwardly to one’s self, I did then. 

“Okay,” I told her, “I’ll take care of it.”

I gathered the basic information - he was in a motor vehicle accident, sitting restrained in the passenger side, life flight brought him in straight from the scene. With that, I took off with my clipboard to his room. 

The stretcher was gone - he’d been in a high speed car crash so my best guess? He’s in CT or MRI. They’re looking for injuries in his head. Then he’ll go to X-ray. 

One glance around his room reveals a single black sock on the floor, along with drips and smears of blood.

I spy what I’m looking for on the floor by the trash can overflowing with discarded trauma gowns. 

The patient’s clothes.

I set my clipboard down and glove up. The clothes had been shredded by trauma shears, but the pockets were intact. Still, no luck - no wallet. 

All I have is the year. 1998. He’s my sister’s age. As soon as the thought crosses my mind I remind myself not to think that. Why do I always draw stronger associations with patients than I need to?

As I leave his room, they’re wheeling him back in. He’s lean, young, sporty. His hair is light and his head is lying flat against the stretcher, he’s non-responsive but at least he’s not intubated. Breathing on your own is a big deal in trauma patients. 

He seems familiar in a distant and hard to place way, like an actor you can’t place or a childhood friend who’s changed just a little too much. I know I don’t know him, but I have a hard time pulling my eyes off him regardless. 

When I get back to my desk out front, I’m not there for two minutes before a young man with a tall frame in an ill-fitting bright blue hoodie approaches my desk. His eyes are worried. I already know, but I ask anyways and he says he’s here to see his friend who was in a car accident. He was in the car behind, he explains, and I understand the look in his eyes.

I ask him for the name and date of birth and all of a sudden, our young man has a name. I redirect the friend to the waiting room, but not before asking if family is coming.

“I been trying to find his mom’s number,” he says, “I’ll keep trying.”

Luckily, armed with his name and DOB, I find that his information is in the system and I set about doing the medical record number combine.

When it’s finished, we have phone numbers for his parents. I jot their names and numbers on a sticky note and head to the nurse’s station. 

There is relief in knowing that soon his parents will know what’s been going on with their child. 

Becky is preoccupied, but I stand across the desk from her until she acknowledges me.

“I have the numbers for the parents if you’d like them.”

“Thanks, I’m all set.”

I clear my throat. “I finished the MRN combine and sent it to IT but it won’t go through for a little while and till then, you won’t have the right numbers. I can just leave this with you if you’d like?”

Her gaze, when it returns to me, is cold. “Tell you what, when I need something, that’s when I’ll come find you.”

I walk away angry. I know she’s busy, she’s probably overwhelmed. But they don’t even know he’s here. Police didn’t know his name, the driver of the vehicle was unconscious at the scene, and this sticky note is his only lifeline to the outside world - to the parents who don’t even know that anything has happened. 

I get that his nurse is busy. 

But this is his mother we’re talking about.

So when I get back to the waiting room, I go to his friend and ask him if he found the number for the mom. When he says he hasn’t yet, I pass along the sticky note.

I’m not aloud to do that, per hospital policy.  The doctor and nursing staff have to be the first call. It’s kind of a big deal, but I pretend to forget this.

She’s his mother. 

Time wears on, the parents are coming from two hours away and he remains unresponsive. He remains unresponsive for so long I begin to really worry.

Meanwhile, half of his basketball team members show up – so many that I have to ask them to relocate to the cafeteria while they wait.

Were they at a game? Surely it’s too early for that?

Some questions remain unanswered.

Like the question of what happened, how it happened.

He wasn’t even the driver, poor kid. Was his friend drinking? Smoking? High on Marijuana or something else? 

And still he doesn’t wake up.

I’ve never yearned for access to clinical information more than I do now – to know the results of his CT scan. Is his brain damaged? Bleeding? When will he wake up? Will he wake up at all?

Not ten minutes later, he wakes up. I was out back at the time, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The whole department knew pretty quickly. Honestly though, I’ve never been happier to hear someone scream and curse.

As the evening wears on and they update the board, I see that he has fractures, contusions, and lacerations, but I don’t see much in the way of mental deficits. It will be a long road, but it’s one he’s lucky to  have the chance to take.

When his family shows up, it’s nearly 11pm, time for me to go home. I offer to take them back, and when I pull aside the curtain in his dimly lit room, he raises his head enough to see his mom and dad coming.

He raises a feeble thumbs up as they go to him, and I close the curtain to give them what privacy I can.

Some may see this and rail on the stupidity and recklessness of young drivers.  Maybe they’re right. Some may see a ruined basket season. This is not inaccurate. Some may see a registration girl being over-dramatic. He was fine, after all. 

Sort of.

But after hours of investing in this chapter of his story, all I can see in that feeble thumbs up is a happy ending.

And when I go to my bed tonight, I’ll pray for him and his recovery. And I won’t have a bit of trouble falling asleep.