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.