The Mistaken by Nancy S Thompson Page B

held my hands to my head. The roar inside was
already deafening and getting louder.
    “Asystole,” a technician called out as the monitor
sounded an even wail.
    The young doctor performing chest compressions
looked at his colleague. “What do you think?” he asked, so
breathless he was panting.
    The older doctor returned the paddles to the cart
and shrugged. “Blunt force trauma like this, could be tension
pneumo, aortic dissection. Take your pick.”
    “We can’t shock her now. Should we try to get a
chest x-ray then send her up to surgery?”
    The older man glanced at the blood collecting in the
plastic bag and all around them on the floor. He blew out a long
sigh. “She won’t even make it to the elevator.”
    “Richard,” the young doc warned as he nodded in my
direction.
    The older man turned and caught my eye. His brow
came together with a deep crease scoring through the center. He
spun around to one of the nurses. “Let’s push another amp of epi
and see what happens.”
    The nurse was so fast she practically had the drug
administered before the order was given. Everyone worked silently
for another ten minutes, each dedicated to their part, but no
matter what they did, nothing changed. The young doc continued to
work over Jill’s chest, his scrubs soaked through with his sweat
and her blood. The elder one shook his head again.
    “Still asystole. How long?” he asked the same nurse
as before.
    She checked the wall clock again. “One hour, five
minutes, Doctor.”
    The older doc pursed his lips, deep in thought. Then
he waved his hand above Jill’s body. “All right, that’s it. I’m
calling it.” He looked up at the wall clock and said, “Death at
sixteen-fifty-two.”
    He stepped from Jill’s side, steadying himself as he
slipped in a puddle of her blood. With a snap, he removed his
gloves and tore away his gown and goggles. He slammed everything
into a tall, lined bin then signed a chart held out by a nurse.
With a frustrated kick to the swinging doors, he left through a
side entrance. He was gone without a backwards glance. I stared
after him, praying he would return, but knowing full well he would
not.
    It was over.
    Oh God, no! I banged on the glass. “No, don’t
stop! Bring her back! She’s not dead! She’s not dead!”
    The nurse who had been helping me earlier stood in
the middle of the room. She turned and spied me through the window
then hurried over and proceeded to console me, but I couldn’t hear
a word she said over the keening that seemed to reverberate off the
glossy tiled walls. It was me, wailing.
    I clamped a hand over my mouth, and tried to focus
back into the trauma room. I stared at Jillian’s lifeless body
lying on the table with all the tubes and wires still attached and
her blood splattered on the floor. A nurse disconnected the
respirator from the tube still stuck in Jill’s throat. She shook
out a long sheet and pulled it up over my wife’s head.
    “No!” I screamed and barged into the room. I pressed
myself around the nurse and pushed her out of the way. “Jillian! Oh
God, no!”
    I yanked the sheet away from Jill’s face and ran my
hand over her forehead. Hands pulled gently at my arms from behind
me, but I jerked free. I bent over and kissed the side of Jill’s
mouth.
    She’s still so warm. This is a mistake. It has to
be. This can’t be happening again. She cannot be dead. Please, God.
Please!
    “Oh my God, Jillian, no…no!”
    The remaining staff backed away when the nurse told
them I was the patient’s husband. I bent over my wife and pulled
her bruised hand out from under the sheet. I held it up to my open
mouth and cried. My hand trembled as I placed it over her womb.
    My wife, my child, both gone.
    I tipped my face up to the ceiling and screamed,
sobbing with more anguish than I had ever felt in my entire life.
“God, how could you do this to me again? How?”
    Then a new panic began to overwhelm me, tightening
across my chest. Jill must have