The blaring sound echoed throughout the room, an erupting light also overtaking the darkness. I rolled in my sleep, and my hands fumbled around the bed searching for the source of the disruption. Finally, I clutched the phone and sent it to voicemail, silencing the god awful sounds and light. With a huff, I sat it on the nightstand and allowed myself to once again fall back to sleep. Minutes into trying to settle back down, the obnoxious vibrations started up, successfully causing the phone to fall to the floor.
With only 4 hours of sleep in my system, a surge of anger overtook me. I'd been at the hospital all day yesterday, working a significant amount of overtime in an effort to save my patient. Which, thankfully everything was successful... everything except my attempts at rest.
My interns knew that I was off the clock and that it wasn't even safe to call me in at this point. No ones lives should be in my hands right now, I was basically on the brink of deliria. Which is why I couldn't even begin to understand why it was that my blinding screen had Alex's name on it.
Leaning halfway off the bed and almost falling completely off, I grabbed my phone and grunted until I got the top half of my body back up, I refused to get up right now. I slid my thumb across the screen and held it up to my ear.
Chaos was all I heard in the back ground. A large amount of people were all talking at once and I could tell that at least one lady was screaming quite loudly. On top of all those noises a constant and incessant beeping from what I assumed was a patients monitor was sounding, signaling that their vitals were in distress. Finally, after a few seconds of taking in all the sounds Alex's voice overtook the jumble of everything else.
"Dr. Hemmings... Dr. Hemmings are you there?" He spit out. I could immediately tell that something was very wrong. His voice shook as he spoke, and a certain tinge of panic was laced over his tone.
"What's going on Alex?" I asked, clearing my throat as my voice came out barely above a whisper.
"I'm so sorry to bother you." He stressed out, shuffling around. "There's a woman here who's quite erratic." He explained, pausing at the end.
"Okay..." Alex was actually one of my top interns, he was the fastest and brightest in my group by far. While he was quite young for the profession he was in, since he was a early graduate, he still handled situations like this with more maturity than most grown ass adults.
Which was why I didn't understand why he was contacting me right now. Erratic and panicked people were a pretty normal sight when working in the emergency department, and it's not anything that I knew he wasn't familiar with.
"She's insisting that her daughter be treated by you, and she won't let anyone else here touch her."
I sat up and ran a hand over my face, as my brain struggled to catch up with what was happening. Who the fuck could it be? A patient I'd treated before.. a family member.. a friend?
"The daughters not of age, so we're reliant on the mother giving consent to treat. I've tried to explain to her why you're not here, but nothings working. She's just on this constant screaming loop that it has to be you.. despite her daughters critical condition." Alex rattled off, giving me a little more insight on the situation.
"What's the patients full name?"
"Sage Clearwater." He replied, taking in a deep breath.
"And the mothers name?"
"Amy Clearwater." Neither name matched anyone that I knew in my mind. I racked every memory of past patients trying to match it to someone but it was to no avail.
"They must've just remembered my name from a fluke visit or something.. they're not one of my established patients." I explained to him, running a hand through my hair.
"Understood, would you like me to tell her once again that you're off the clock?"
I groaned audibly in response, both wanting sleep and to help Alex. This was something that in all my years of working at this hospital, I'd never experienced.
"I'm just going to insist she receive treatment from another doctor on staff, you need the rest Luke, I'm sorry to wake you."
"Don't apologize." I quipped back quickly, understanding his stress. "This is a weird occurrence, thanks for letting me know though."
"Goodnig-" Alex's voice cut off mid word and I heard the voice of the loud woman in the background. I couldn't make out anything they were saying to each other, but I could tell it was still Alex's voice replying. After about five more minutes of the back and forth between the two, he came back to the phone.
"She wants me to run another name by you." He explained, sounding irritated.
"Shoot."
"Amy Lisender." I heard the name leave his mouth, but it didn't click until a moment or two later.
"Repeat that name for me again..?" I said, as my mouth went dry and my thoughts raced at a mile a minute.
"Amy Lisender?" I paused once more, not able to really think straight.
"Ah shit."
