Should I Stay?

Chapter 5

When the ambulance gets to the nearest hospital -not the one in my hometown but a small local place that looks more like an old-age home than a medical center- the medics rush me inside.

''I think we've got a collapsed lung. Get a chest tube in her and move her out!'' the nice red-haired medic screams as he passes me off to a team of nurses and doctors.

''Where's the rest of her family?'' asks a bearded guy.

''Other driver suffering mild concussions, being treated at the scene. Parents DOA. Boy, about seven years old, just behind us."

I let out a huge exhale, as though I've been holding my breath for the last twenty minutes. After seeing myself in that ditch, I hadn't been able to look for Louis. If he were like Mom and Dad, like me, I... I didn't want to even think about it. But he isn't. He is still alive.

They take me into a small room with bright lights. A doctor dabs some orange stuff onto the side of my chest and then rams a small plastic tube in me. Another doctor shines a flashlight into my eye.

''Non-responsive,'' he tells the nurse. ''The chopper's here. Get her to Trauma. Now!''

They rush me out of the ER and into the elevator. I have to jog to keep up. Right before the doors close, I notice that my aunt Diana is here. 

She works as an nurse in the hospital in my neighborhood. But what was she doing here? Did she get called in because of the snow? Because of us? She rushes around the hospital hall, her face in full concentration. I don't think she even knows it's us, yet.

The elevator opens right onto the roof. A helicopter, its blades swooshing the air, stands in the middle of a big red circle.

I've never been in a helicopter before. My best friends, Niall, Liam and Zayn, have. They went on a flight over the Grand Canyon once with their uncle Simon.

''There she was, talking about the canyon and I puked right on her.'' Niall told me the next day. He still looked a little green from the experience.

''He even got some on Simon's camera,'' Liam added, laughing his head off.

I laugh, ''I don't think I necessarily need to go flying around in helicopters.''

''That's good,'' Zayn answers. ''Because I'm never going on a helicopter again with this Irish lad over here when he pukes on everything.'' he smirks.

''No but seriously, I don't want you to go, either.'' Liam says to me, knowing how fast I get sick in cars and stuff.

I want to tell him that sometimes you don't have a choice, but that will only lead to an argument with him about that. And almost everyone knows that you never win an argument from Liam Payne.

The helicopter doors open, and my stretcher with all its tubes and wires is loaded in. I climb in behind.  A medic bounds in next to me, still pumping the little plastic bulb that is apparently breathing for me.

Once we lift off, I understand why Niall got so queasy. 

A helicopter is nothing like an airplane, a smooth fast bullet. A helicopter is more like a hockey puck, bounced through the sky. Up and down, side to side. I have no idea how these people can work on me of can even drive this thing while they communicate about me through headsets, with the chopper chopping around.

The helicopter hits an air pocket and by all rights it should make me queasy. But I don't feel anything, at least the me who's a bystander does not. And the me on the stretcher doesn't seem to feel anything, either. 

Again I have to wonder if I'm dead but then I tell myself no. They wouldn't have loaded me on this helicopter, would not be flying me across the forests if I were dead.