No Time | Grey's Anatomy // Book 1 // COMPLETED |

38 | Trauma Isn't Fair

As my pager beeped loudly, I slowly opened my eyes. Grabbing the device, I saw that we were being paged to the skills lab. "Another skills lab session." I groaned as I pushed myself out of bed. Noticing that I was still in my dark blue scrubs from the day before, I stopped off at the residents' lounge to quickly change into my light blue scrubs before making my way to the skills lab.

"Am I early?" Meredith groaned as she joined us, "I tried really hard not to be."

Jackson smiled, "That doesn't bode well."

"We did the same thing with Bailey when we were interns." Alex said, "Take turns treating a dummy, get an early lunch, then get back to work. It's lame."

Just then Owen rushed into the room with a pile of yellow trauma scrubs, "Charter plane was forced into an emergency landing and collided with a greyhound bus. Mass-casualty situation. Do I need to say it again? Let's move!"

In mere seconds everyone in the skills lab had on a yellow scrub coat and were rushing through the halls after Owen. "Close to thirty victims in the field, some critical." Owen shouted as he ran to the doors, "Multiple blunt trauma injuries."

As Owen pushed the doors open and we flooded outside, we saw that there were a bunch of dummies sprawled out on the pavement. "And I was so looking forward to an early lunch."

Jackson sighed as Owen smiled from ear to ear. "This is gonna suck," Meredith said as we looked around at the dummies with different wounds and injuries.

"Welcome to trauma certification." Owen announced as he walked over to one of the ambulances that were part of this whole thing and opened the back doors, "You will work in teams of four or five. Each team will be responsible for nine casualties. You may treat your patients using only what you can carry with your two hands from this ambulance." as Owen spoke, some guy walked around sticking different coloured duck tape to our chests, "The EVAC helicopter is on its way. You get your patients on the helicopter, you get certified. Are you ready?"

All the doctors murmured a yes and nodded their heads. "Get to work," Owen told us and we all rushed for the ambulance to grab supplies for our patients.

"According to this card, this guys got a blown right pupil, an atlantooccipital dislocation, open-book pelvis, a large open abdominal wound..." April said as she started looking over a dummy, "jeez!...a sucking chest wound with seven broken ribs. This guy is all messed up."

"Or he's dead," Meredith suggested.

April nodded and put a sticker that indicated a dead patient on the dummy, "Ah, right. Yes. Moving on."

Being part of the blue team, I was with April, Alex, Meredith, and Jackson. Kneeling down, I picked up the card for a woman. "Two broken ribs, a bleeding wound on the head...and a dislocated shoulder." I read as I checked out the dummy.

About an hour later, the teams lined up in front of their patients to do an overall inspection. Meredith had left, so our team of once five was now four. "Blue team, status report," Owen ordered.

"We arrived on the scene to find nine casualties." April began, "We identified three as priority one, requiring immediate evacuation, four were priority two, allowing for delayed EVAC. One was priority three, and the last was sadly, dead on the scene."

"Nice work, Kepner." said Owen, "But it seems to me that you now have two dead patients."

"Excuse me?" April asked.

Owen folded his arms, "Well, while you were standing around waiting for the helicopter to arrive and not keeping a constant eye on your patient's injury, this one developed a femoral bleed, bled out and is now sadly dead."

Owen flipped up the now 'dead' dummy as April stared in confusion. "No, a-a femoral bleed...that wasn't on the card," April said.

"Really? Well, it's on this one." Owen snapped his fingers and the guy who had given us the duck tape walked over and placed another card with injuries on the dummy.

"O-oh, no, no, no." April complained, "Wait. That's not fair."

"Patients don't suddenly die." Owen told everyone, "It just seems that way when you stop paying attention. Food for thought. Red team, go."

One of the guys from the red team cleared his throat and started presenting. "I'm so sorry, you guys." the man with the cards, who looked more like a teen kid in scrubs up close, told us. April let out a groan as thunder rumbled and it started to rain down on us. "Awesome." Alex stared up at the clouds and let the rain fall in his face. Wasting no time, we walked back over to our patients to make sure that no more of them died before the helicopter got there.

"The helicopter has to be getting here soon. It's been three hours." April groaned as it continued to pour down on us, completely soaking us from head to toe. "Just-just a few more minutes." April continued as Owen walked over, "Right? Right, Dr. Hunt? the helicopter will be here any minute?"

Owen ignored April's question and looked at Alex who was wearing one of the bags to keep the dummies dry, "Nice rain gear Karev. Shouldn't you be more concerned with your patients staying dry?"

"Yeah, well, he's a dummy, and I'm a person, so..." Alex sighed.

Owen leaned down beside Alex, "You know, a dry patient is less likely to die of hypothermia or shock. Something to think about."

"Alex, you can't break the rules like that." April yelled, "That's unsanctioned use of a trash bag. You're gonna mess up our certification."

Alex rolled his eyes, "Oh, you need to relax. This whole uptight thing? This is why you have no friends."

Jackson turned to Alex, "Hey."

"Okay, this is why you have one friend." Alex corrected himself.

Then, out of nowhere, April turned around and ripped the trash bag off of Alex. "Give me that back!" Alex demanded, "Are you crazy?"

"There you go, little guy." April placed the bag on the dummy she was currently treating, "No hypothermia for you."

"Everyone!" Owen called to us all as he flipped over a dummy, "Green teams patients are all dead. Only red team and blue team remain." As the green team stood up to go back inside, Owen stopped them, "Whoa. You see a helicopter? Take a knee, learn something."

"Take a knee?" Jackson repeated as we went back to work, "He's gonna scalp them. We're in 'apocalypse now,' and we're gonna get scalped."

A few more hours later, it was still raining, and the helicopter still hadn't 'arrived' yet. "Okay, red teams patients have all died." Owen announced, "Only blue team remains. Keep an eye on Karev. That's what resourceful looks like. Good effort Avery." Owen leaned down, "But this incision you made is too wide. You lacerated the superior thyroid arteries."

"Well, I just..." Jackson tried to explain but Owen just flipped the body over.

"Move on," Owen instructed.

Standing up, Jackson was clearly mad, "Damn it!"

"I hear it. I hear the helicopter." April shouted.

"You what?" I asked.

"I-I-I-I hear it. I hear it!" April repeated.

Alex groaned, "Oh, wake up! You don't hear the helicopter because 'A,' it's imaginary, and 'B,' the imaginary helicopter is never coming! Hunt's trying to break us. Trying to teach us some BS lesson about how trauma isn't fair or whatever. We're not done until he says these dummies are dead. The end!"

"That's not true!" April shouted back, "No! You are wrong!"

"Screw this. I'm done." Jackson gave up on giving one of the dummies CPR.

April watched as he walked away, "What? Jackson!"

"Jackson come on!" I tried to get him to come back.

"Avery, where are you going?" Owen asked, "Avery. Avery, get back here."

Jackson continued to walk away, "No!"

Owen raised his eyebrows, "No?"

"No, sir." Jackson corrected himself before he opened the door and disappeared into the warm and dry hospital.

As we continued to work through the day, it had become night; and now, not only was I soaked and cold, but I was soaked and freezing. As April, Jackson, and I continued to do CPR on the dummies, April was glaring at Owen. "Sir!" April shouted, "You said the helicopter was gonna be here hours ago, and it's not here, and I'm not complaining, but where is it?"
"Well, the rain's still pretty bad." Owen looked up into the night sky, "Probably got caught in a hail storm."

Owen motioned for the teen looking guy to give April's dummy another card, but before he could, April threw herself over the body and shouted, "No! No! I know what that card is gonna say. It's gonna say he has cardiac tamponade with associated hypotension and bradycardia, but he can't, 'cause I already did a paricardiosentesis and bloused him with I.V. fluids."

"She's right." the guy told Owen, "What do I do?"

Then, April threw the trash bag off of the patient. "Karev! Forrest! Grab his feet!"

Jumping up, Alex and I grabbed onto the patient. "Hey, hey, hey." Owen called after us, "Whoa, whoa, whoa."

"Son of a bitch. That's awesome!" Alex smiled as we carried the dummy over to the ambulance and put him in the back.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Owen followed us, "What do you think you're doing? This ambulance is not in play."

April shook her head as we headed back to grab the other dummies, "Oh, you're just making stuff up, which I can do too! And I say it is in play! Can't fit nine patients in an ambulance. But two will fit just fine. Seven of my patients may have died today, but these two won't. 'Cause I'm gonna get them on this ambulance, and I'm gonna them 'em to that hospital right there!"

After we had loaded the last dummy, April and I hopped into the back of the ambulance. "All right!" Alex smiled as he closed the back doors. April and I made our way to the front of the ambulance and sat in the driver and passenger seats.

"Kepner, this ambulance was involved in the accident and no longer runs," Owen said as April rolled down the window.

"Well, there's keys in the ignition, so let's see." April replied as she turned the keys and the ambulance came to life, "Looks like I got triple-A. Ha! Apparently they could get here when the helicopter couldn't. Now move! Or I will run you down!"

Without warning, April stepped on the gas, turned on the sirens, and drove us all the way around to the hospital's ambulance bay. After April had stopped the ambulance, we got out. "John doe, multiple chest and extremity traumas." April yelled as she got ran to the back of the ambulance, "Still hypotensive despite two large-bore I.V.s started in the field."

"All right, Kepner. That's enough." Owen said as he and Alex ran outside.

"We need a full workup and likely a thoracotomy," April screamed as she picked up on of the dummies and I grabbed the other.

Laughing, I joined in, "I suspect active bleeding in the chest!"

"Will you tell us we won, or she's never gonna stop?" Alex begged.

"It's not a contest," Owen said.

April turned back to the men, "Karev! Call the O.R. and make sure that there's a room available."

"Will do." Alex agreed.

"All right, all right, fine." Owen finally gave in, "Blue team wins."

"Blue team wins?" April smiled.

Owen nodded, "yeah, yeah, yeah, you win. He's gonna live for forty more years and have fifteen grandkids. You happy?"

"Blue team wins!" April dropped the dummy and the three of us hugged in the rain like some cheesy movie, "YES!"

Smiling and Laughing, I went inside to change out of my sopping wet clothes. Once I was changed into a new set of scrubs, I walked out of the lounge and towards an on-call room to spend yet another night in the hospital. Once I had relaxed into one of the beds, I pulled out my phone and checked to see if I had any messages. Turning on my phone, I saw that I had three missed calls and about four missed texts. Ignoring the calls, I went straight to the messages first.

Sam: Ellie, we need to talk.

Sam: Ellie, please pick up the phone! I seriously need to talk to you.

Sam: I have a super big decision that I can't make without you. If you can't answer me, then please just come home tonight.

Sam: ...I was offered a job in Florida and I think I am going to take it.