The ER

A tragic death in an emergency room of a rural hospital gives the doctor an experience he will never forget.

The ER

                It is early morning. The night shift has ended, so he goes back to his little office and lies down on the small sofa, trying to get some shut-eye but finds himself listening to the sound of an ambulance outside the emergency room. The state-run hospital is in a rural part of town, and it has one ER doctor on duty and one on-call at a time. So even though his shift has ended and there is another doctor on duty, he is still on call in his office until this afternoon. So, he lies on the sofa in his little office, trying to forget the hectic night that has passed. Hell, it is always hectic in the emergency room for as long as he can remember.  

                After a couple of hours into his uncomfortable rest on the small sofa in his little office, he is awakened by an ER nurse who tells him they need some help. There has been a road accident, and a woman, now in the emergency room, is critically injured. A local bus ran over her motorcycle a few miles from the hospital. So, he rushed out into the emergency room and sees the woman’s body covered in blood, from head to toe. He and the nurse go over to her, and try their best to stop the bleeding. Her face is gone, arms and legs are shattered, and she is probably bleeding internally as well. Hell, she was run over by a bus.

                He tries to feel her pulse, but it is very slow. She needs a surgery immediately if she is ever going to make it, so he gives the order for the nurse to prepare for one. Hurry! But it is too late. The woman, soaked in a pool of her own blood, is gone. Gone from this crazy world, and there was nothing he could have done to save her, except holding her hand. Another emergency room tragedy.

The procedure requires him to write a detailed report on the case, but it can wait. He needs to be alone, so he goes to the bathroom to wash. Wash away the blood on his hands and arms and legs. Her blood. It is still not easy to deal with the aftermath of a tragic death even though he has been through this countless times. Some lives are saved, some are lost. It is what happens in the emergency room of every hospital.

He slowly walks back to his little office and sees a young, pretty woman standing in front of it. She looks at him and says, “Thank you, doctor”.

“Ok? Who might you be?” he asked politely.

“Thank you, doctor.”

He smiles and nods. “Are you a relative of a patient?”

She does not answer, but turns around and walks away.

He enters his little office and decides he will start on the report. He picks up the case file and looks at the photo of the dead woman from the emergency room. It is the photo of the young woman with whom he just talked in front of his office.