As the storm raged on, I sat in a supply closet with my arms wrapped around my head, trying to block out the noise. The thunder, the crashes, the screams. At first, it was patient screams from inside the hospital, distant and quiet; but then it grew louder, right beside my ear. And it wasn't some random patient anymore, it was Arizona...and then Meredith...and then myself.
The first time I had gotten flashbacks during a storm, Alex came over and I hadn't had one since. Well...since now. I knew I had work to do...somewhere deep down I knew it, but I didn't care. It was like I was fighting for my life and if I left that closet I would die. My heart pumped rapidly and I squeezed my eyes shut. I was supposed to be professional. But when you're scared, everything you are...everything you were, disappears and you're just a person trying to stay alive.
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"Ellie." a soft voice woke me up, "Ellie, get up."
Opening my eyes, I looked up to see Owen. Sitting up from the closet ground, I stretched. "Did you sleep here?" Owen asked.
Self consciously, I nodded, "Yeah, um. I came in here for some quiet last night and fell asleep I guess."
Owen stared at me for a few moments before deciding that my lie was good enough. "Okay." he helped me stand, "We're having a board meeting. Let's go."
"Oh, baby's sleepin'." Bailey cooed as she held Meredith's new baby boy, who Meredith and Derek had also named Bailey.
Owen sighed as we all stood around Meredith's hospital room, "Okay, we should get started. Um, Bailey, we have some board business that we need to disc-"
"I'm not going anywhere." Bailey told him, "Me and this baby got Bailey business to discuss. Don't we? Yes. Dr. Derek Bailey Shepherd. Yes, we do."
Looking around at everyone fussing over the baby made me feel a little weird. If I decided to have my baby, would everyone be this supportive, too?
"What does Zola think of him?" Arizona asked.
Meredith smiled, "Oh, she wants to take him to daycare for show and tell."
"Where's Richard?" Derek looked at us.
Owen shrugged, "I paged all the board members."
"Oh, Avery should be here, too," Derek added.
"Yeah, well, he was being a hero last night. He dislocated his shoulder saving a kid from the bus crash." Owen breathed.
"What bus crash?" Meredith asked.
Cristina looked to us, "She had a baby. She doesn't know things."
Meredith nodded, "So tell me."
Derek turned to his wife, "A church was evacuating some people, and their bus overturned."
"The good news is, everyone survived, and there are no major injuries," Owen assured her.
"And the bad news?" Arizona questioned.
Owen huffed, "Everything else. The blood bank is flooded, and the E.R, looks like it was ransacked."
"So we need to close the E.R.?" I raised an eyebrow.
"We're dangerously low on meds." Owen answered, "Personnel can't make it in due to the flooding."
Cristina nodded, "So we need to close the E.R."
"But can we do that?" Arizona inquired.
Owen shoved his hands in his pockets, "You are the board. I am telling you that E.R. cannot open today."
Meredith sat up some more in her bed, "What do we need? I mean, I can try to coordinate with our suppliers." Arizona and Cristina shot her a look, "I had a baby. I'm not dead."
"If they have it, then we want it." Owen agreed as Bailey continued to play and make faces at baby Bailey, "In the meantime, let's make sure that our inpatients are taken care of and discharge who we can."
"Like me," Meredith spoke up.
Derek shook his head, "No, you just had a major abdominal surgery. You're gonna stay right here."
"All right, airport's just reopened." Jackson entered the room, his arm still in a sling, "I just put Dr. Boswell in a cab."
"Who's Dr. Boswell?" Cristina asked.
Callie, who stood off to the side with her arms crossed, huffed, "She's the woman Arizona slept with last night."
The intensity in the room went up at least ten notches as Callie stormed out.
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Ambulance sirens wailed in the distance as Jackson, Owen, and I all walked out to the ambulance bay. "What are you doing?" Jackson asked April, Shane, Heather, and Stephanie as they stood in trauma gowns, waiting for ambulances, "We're closed to incoming traumas, guys."
"Tell that to them." April gestured to the many ambulances that were pulling in, "There was a mudslide near Madrona. A bunch of cops and firefighters got hurt doing evacuations. There are also a bunch of civilian causalities as well. "
My mouth hung open at how crowded the ambulance bay was. "And what about Seattle Pres?" I asked, tying my hair up because I knew I would be rushed into a mess of Trauma any moment now.
"They're worse off than we are," Owen answered.
Jackson nodded, "All right, let's do it. Help me get this sling off."
Owen turned to the interns, "Get me every suture kit, laceration tray, foley, and chest tube that you can."
As Owen and I got ready to rush the ambulances, Leah walked up and stared at us like a deer in headlights. "What?" Owen looked up at her, his tone a little rougher than usual due to a long and sleepless night.
"My shift is over." Leah told us, "I was gonna go home and go to sleep. I'm so tired and hungry. My teeth have stuff growing on them, and...can you pretend you didn't hear any of that?"
"Yep." Owen nodded as we slipped some gloves on and approached one of the rigs.
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"Lenny Shulte, captain of Ladder Company 54. Unconscious at the scene with a G.C.S. of thirteen. B.P.'s been constantly dropping. Last was eighty-five over sixty." a paramedic gave us the rundown as she and her partner wheeled a patient into the hospital. It had been about half an hour and I had already seen about five patients. The floors were covered in dirt and litter and we had little to no supplies. It was a train wreck in here.
"I can't...get...a...a good...breath." the man, Lenny, wheezed out, his voice muffled even more by the oxygen mask.
"Increase his O2 to ten liters." Owen turned to the paramedic before his attention was back on Lenny, "Can you tell me if anything fell on you, on your chest?"
"I don't know." Lenny frantically gasped for breath and I removed his mask so we could hear him better, "Last thing I remember, helping the old lady out of her house. Did sh-she make it?"
"I'll check," Owen assured him.
Lenny paused for a moment, "5818 Shore Drive. And my guys...I-I got twelve guys out there."
Just then he started to cough up what I first assumed was blood, but after a closer look at the colour, though it may have been mud due to the brown tint. "Turn him. Turn him!" Owen ordered as Lenny coughed the subsistence onto the floor, "Okay, looks like he aspirated mud. Let's get him into Trauma room one. Let's get a chest X-Ray and start him on antibiotics. Let's go!"
As April and I got Lenny into Trauma room one and started to check him over we heard Alex shout our names. Looking up at him through the glass he yelled at us again, "Tell your guy 5818 is out."
"Okay, how's he doing?" Owen entered the room a few minutes later.
I sighed as I looked to the monitor, "Captain Shulte has decreased breath sounds on the right, worsening tachypnea and persistent SATs in the eighties."
April nodded as the nurses gloved us, "Took us forever to find a chest tube."
"I need a-a list." Lenny panted as his eyes drifted to the few men from his team standing in the room, "Who-who's still missing?"
"Okay, Lenny, something in your chest cavity's preventing you from breathing well so we're gonna insert a chest tube which should help you breathe better." April looked down at Lenny as we prepped him, "Is there anyone that we can call for you?"
"Mm. Call..." Lenny started as the nurse lifted his one arm for the tube, "Call Marla, but...don't-don't let her come up here. Road's not safe. "
The other firefighters nodded. "Guys, you're gonna need to go now," Owen told them.
The men nodded, gave Lenny some words of encouragement, and left. Owen held the needle inches above Lenny's chest, "Okay, you're gonna feel a little snip. Here we go."
"Got a chest tube." Stephanie walked in.
I looked to her, "Too late. Already got one."
Stephanie set the tube down, "Okay, uh, let me help."
Moving quickly, I helped April open the wound as she inserted the tube into the chest. Seconds later a brown liquid started spilling out the other end and onto Stephanie. "Oh! Oh, God, oh, God, it's poop!" Stephanie squealed.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart." Lenny apologized.
"The tube is in a good position." Owen commented, "I suspect a diaphragmatic rupture. Lenny, Lenny, I believe your colon has been pushed up into your chest. Now the risk of infection is extremely high. Now if I'm right, we're gonna need to open you up. All right? Give me the chart, please."
The nurse picked up the chart, "Here you go, doctor."
"All right, let's get an X-Ray and prep him for surgery." Owen said, "I'll scrub in with you. Call Bailey. Ask her to man the E.R., please. Go."
Stephanie looked down at her feces-covered shirt before taking off.