The men lifted the stretcher from each end and, like an ironing board, its legs dropped down. Instantly the stretcher was converted into a narrow but functional gurney. Together they pushed through the automatic sliding door of the emergency room and looking neither right nor left, turned down the main corridor and took an elevator to Neurology West on the fourteenth floor. There were two RNs and five LPNs assigned to the floor for the shift, but one of the nurses and three of the aides were on their break, so Ms. Claudine Arnette, RN, was in charge. It was to her that the thinner man presented the transfer documents. The patient was being moved to a private room at New York Medical Center, where her own doctor had admitting privileges.
Ms. Arnette checked the papers, swore under her breath because she had just finished her paper work on the admission and signed the form. She asked Maria Gonzales to accompany the men down to room 1420. Then she went back to her narcotic check before her own break. Even in the reduced light she’d noticed that the driver had amazingly green eyes.
Maria Gonzales opened the door to room 1420, and tried to awaken Lynn Anne. It was difficult. She explained to the ambulance attendants that they’d received a phone call order for a double dose of sleep medication as well as phenobarbital because of the possibility of seizure. The men told Maria it didn’t matter, and they positioned the stretcher and arranged the blankets. With a smooth, practiced maneuver, they lifted the patient and settled her with the blankets. Lynn Anne Lucas never even woke up.
The men thanked Maria, who had already begun to strip Lynn Anne’s bed. Then they wheeled her out into the hallway. Ms. Arnette didn’t look up when they passed the nurses’ station and got back on the elevator. An hour later the ambulance pulled away from the Med Center. There was no need for the siren or rotating light. The ambulance was empty.