The doctor's eyes narrowed as he tried to decide what to say. His next words didn't get much better. "You should have told me as soon as I came in the room." Of course he was turning the blame on her. She had to count to ten before speaking again, or she just might get fired before she was ready to leave the hospital she'd already decided she wouldn't stay at forever.
"I was trying to tell you, but none of that matters right now," she said with a shake of her head. "I've been with him for the past fifteen minutes and he looks like he's going into respiratory failure. We need to address the internal injuries now."
The doctor pushed on the patient's abdomen and looked at him for all of ten seconds. "You're overreacting. We have more patients in here that need our care. This one is fine."
He began to turn away. Lindsey was furious. She chose to stand her ground. Turning to the resident, who was looking at the two of them, his head whipping back and forth, Lindsey spoke to him instead.
"Get ready to intubate. He's about to crash."
"Lindsey!" the doctor shouted, turning back around.
"Trust me. I know how to do my job," she said as the monitors began going off.
The doctor never said another word as they intubated the patient and rushed him off for surgery. He was too much of an arrogant ass to admit he'd been wrong.
Lindsey dragged herself to the break room and made a cup of coffee, giving herself a few minutes until the next patient arrived. The entire shift had been one of those days.
She got in only a few sips of coffee before her pager went off and she had to leave her drink as she rushed back to the ER. A large man was being brought in, apparently an overdose. Panic closed Lindsey's chest, but she couldn't let it win.
This wasn't the same man who'd attacked her, even if he was similar in appearance. He was a patient, and no matter who he was or what was wrong, he had a right to medical treatment.
The paramedic spoke fast. "We have a forty-two-year-old male, approximately two hundred fifty pounds. Apparent heroin drug OD per his roommate, as well as multiple unidentified pills. He was found down in his living room with a needle in his arm, unresponsive. We gave him Narcan en route and he woke up hard and fast, so I recommend using caution with the next dose. I was about to give a second dose, but arrived at your ED before I could administer. We have two eighteen-gauge IVs started and his blood sugar is one eighty-four."
The nurses were already at work assessing lines and placing a tube down his nose and into his stomach so they could administer the necessary medication to counteract the pills he'd taken.
"Let's get some charcoal down him ASAP, and draw a tox screen." Dr. Cullen was giving orders for tasks that had already been done, especially since the nurses had handled patients like this one so many times they could do it with their eyes shut. But no one said anything as they continued working on the man.
"Where is the Narcan?" the MD yelled, apparently wanting the nurses to grow more hands and do everything at once.
"What's Narcan?" one of the new lab techs asked Lindsey.
"It's a med that instantly reverses the effects of opiates like heroin, but it has to be given slowly or the patient can wake up wild and swinging.
"We don't want that to happen," the young guy said just as Lindsey was leaning over the patient to check his monitor leads.
"Never mind, I'll give the medicine myself," she heard Dr. Cullen snap.
Before she could utter a sound, Dr. Cullen slammed the medication into the patient's IV.
Suddenly the man's hand came out of nowhere, grabbing her by the throat. He freed his other arm and began pulling out his IVs and nasogastric tube. Blood and charcoal went spraying everywhere, but it didn't even matter to Lindsey because the room was closing in on her as the patient continued squeezing his fat fingers into her throat.
"Get away from me, you murderous bastards. Stop poking me!" he screamed as his free hand batted at the doctors and staff.
Pure terror was rushing through her, and though she was scratching at the man's hand, it wasn't budging. This was too similar, too soon. Yes, she'd had patients go ballistic before, but her head had always been in the game. She'd never been so afraid.
He turned his head and looked at her as if finally noticing her, even though he'd been gripping her throat for what felt an eternity. "Get me out of here, bitch, now!" he thundered.
"Stop him," the MD yelled as the patient threw Lindsey across the room and onto the emergency crash cart. Her rib cage was screaming in pain as she crumpled to the floor like a rag doll.
She hardly had time to notice her own pain before security and staff were jumping over to restrain the patient to the bed. Although he continued fighting them, the Narcan was wearing off, so the drugs in his system were slowly taking him under once more.
"I want five mg Versed IM in him now," Dr. Cullen shouted.
"You're not giving me anything," the patient yelled, though it was much more muted than a few seconds before.
Although the rest of the staff worked quickly and efficiently, they couldn't help but shoot a nasty glare the doctor's way. He shouldn't have shot that medicine so quickly into the patient's IV in the first place.
Finally, the patient's eyes rolled back and his body relaxed. The security staff got him strapped to the bed. It was a police matter now.
The patient was secured and Lindsey was done. She was grateful for the helping hand that lifted her off the ground and out of the pool of blood that had saturated her scrubs. After thanking the nurse, she walked from the ER, too spooked to stay and watch them fix the damage the patient had caused himself.
"Lindsey!" Turning, she found Maverick standing in front of her with a look of worry in his eyes. "What happened? Where did all the blood come from?"
For a moment she didn't know what he was talking about. Then she looked down and saw that her scrubs looked as if she'd just come from a battle-which, in fact, she had.
"It was an unruly patient. He ripped out his IV," she said as she changed directions and headed to the nurse's lounge where she could get out of the scrubs. Tears were close to breaking, but she didn't want to let them fall. She'd cried enough already.
"Are you okay?" Maverick was right beside her, his hand on her back.
"It just shook me up a little," she admitted.
"I'm sorry." He stopped her and made her face him. She couldn't look into his eyes. If she did, surely she would fall apart.
"I'm okay, Mav. Just-just go home. I still have a few hours left," she said as she reached the door to the locker room.
"I'm not going anywhere. Your face is white, your clothes are bloody, and you're in shock. Let's get you cleaned up and get some coffee. I'm sure the staff will understand if you need to leave," he told her.
She stopped inside the locker room, which was blessedly empty. She refused to look at him. He refused to let her shut him out. His fingers slipped beneath her chin and he raised her face to his. Then she was looking into his panicked eyes.
It was odd, really, but seeing the wild look on his face seemed to ground her. It was nice to know someone was out there who cared so much about her that seeing her like this was sending him off the deep end a little.
She couldn't smile, but she tried to make her voice reassuring as she spoke.
"I can't keep running every time I get scared. This is the job. Things happen. But I really need to get cleaned up," she told him.
He was silent as he looked at her, and then she saw something else in his eyes that nearly had her reeling. She didn't want to analyze it, didn't want to focus on what she was seeing. She pulled away from him. She was finding it difficult to breathe.
"You're so damn strong, Lins. I'm proud of you."
His words were spoken almost reverently. It was giving her more and more strength. This man made her feel stronger and more capable. What was she doing continually running from him?
"I really do need to clean up," she said, her voice almost pleading.
"Okay, sug."
He didn't say anything else, just took her into the shower room and began pulling off her clothes. She was trembling in his arms, but the more she thought about what had just occurred, the more she felt like she couldn't speak.
She knew she should say something-do something, but she couldn't.
Soon, the bloodied clothes were off her, and she was standing beneath the warm spray not understanding how she'd gotten there. And she wasn't alone.
Maverick was with her, his chest pressed to her back as he ran his hands through her hair and down her body, getting every last trace of blood off her. Not knowing when the tears started, she just stood there slumped against him as he took care of her.
"I'm here, Lindsey, right here," he whispered as he rinsed soap from her hair before he pulled her from the shower and wrapped one towel around her while using another to dry her body.