Cowboy Take Me Away(2)

            No response.

            He pulled his phone out of the leather case hooked to his belt and dialed 911.

            “Crook County dispatch. What’s your emergency?”

            “This is Carson McKay. My wife got thrown from her horse and she’s not movin’.” Dispatch asked a few more questions, which annoyed him and he cut the dispatcher off with, “Just send the goddamned ambulance.” He rattled off his address by rote as he stroked Carolyn’s cheek. Somehow he kept it together when he saw the blood seeping out from underneath her head. “And hurry.” He ended the call.

            Then he picked up her hand, pressing her palm to his face. When he heard Sheridan’s distressed whinny, he forced himself to leave Carolyn’s side.

            Sheridan came right over when he whistled. He unsaddled her first and then removed the bridle. He didn’t bother to check the bridle’s malfunction; he just threw it beside the saddle and returned to his wife. She still hadn’t moved.

            “Stay with me, sugar.” Needing to assure himself she was still alive, he rested his lips against the pulse point in her wrist, praying help arrived soon.

            The ambulance took them straight to the Spearfish hospital.

            Carson filled out the pages of paperwork—without complaint. But he did it by her bedside while the doctors assessed her. He observed from across the room when they shaved the back and top portion of her head. He kept one hand wrapped around the metal rail of her hospital bed when they wheeled her to X-ray. He reclaimed his chair when they returned to her room. He never said a word. He listened. He observed. He prayed.

            A lot.

            Then the medical personnel gently but firmly removed him from her room. He paced in the waiting room for family members of trauma patients.

            Trauma.

            One hour stretched into two, into three, into four. When the nurses asked if he wanted to speak with his family members gathered in the main waiting area, he said no.

            At hour six, two young doctors, Dr. Vincent and Dr. McMillan, the neurologist from Rapid City, scooted two chairs in the waiting room across from him.

            “Mr. McKay. As you’re aware, your wife hadn’t regained consciousness since the injury. We know from the X-rays that the blunt force trauma of impact with the ground has caused her brain to swell. We’ve taken no course of action yet simply because we needed to observe her these past few hours. Sometimes patients come out of these incidents on their own. That is not the case with Mrs. McKay. During our observation the swelling in her brain has increased considerably.”

            Considerably. Jesus. “Does she have brain damage?”

            “Too soon to tell.”

            “So, what now? I just sit here and hope she opens her damn eyes?”

            “No. With what we’ve observed we can detail our proposed treatment.”

            “Which is what?”

            The doctors exchanged a look. Neither man seemed old enough to practice medicine and that didn’t set Carson’s mind at ease.

            The dark-haired doctor spoke first. “We’d like to place your wife in a medically induced coma.”

            Carson opened his mouth to say the fuck that is happening.

            “Hear us out. We’ve already given your wife an IV of Mannitol that reduces cranial pressure from swelling via drainage. But it hasn’t worked as well as we expected. So Dr. Vincent—” he gestured to his red-haired colleague, “—your wife’s anesthesiologist, has proposed using a sedative called Propofol, normally used during surgical procedures, to put Mrs. McKay into a temporary coma.”