the silhouettes becoming people with faces, then more faces appearing…
soft but urgent voices … hands gripping her, lifting … her off the
gurney, onto a bed .. tipped back a little, her head below the level of
her body …
rhythmic beeps and clicks issuing from electronic equipment of some
kind.
She wished they would just all go away and leave her alone, in peace.
Just go away. Turn off the lights as they went. Leave her in darkness.
She longed for silence, stillness, peace.
A vile odor with an edge of ammonia assaulted her. It burned her nasal
passages, made her eyes pop open and water.
A man in a white coat was holding something under her nose and peering
intently into her eyes. As she began to choke and gag on the stench, he
took the object away and handed it to a brunette in a white uniform.
The pungent odor quickly faded.
Lindsey was aware of movement around her, faces coming and going.
She knew that she was the center of attention, an object of urgent
inquiry, but she did not-could not manage tare. It was all more like a
dream than her actual dreams had been. A soft tide of voices rose and
fell around her, swelling rhythmically like gentle breakers whispering
on a sandy shore: ….. marked paleness of the skin .. cyanosis of
lips, nails, fingertips, lobes of the ears ,…weak pulse, very rapid
… respiration quick and shallow … blood pressure’s so damned low I
can’t get a reading “Didn’t those assholes “Sure, all the way in.”
“Oxygen, CO-2 mix. And make it fast!”
“Epinephrine?”
“Yeah, prepare it.”
“Epinephrine? But what if she has internal injuries? You can’t see a
hemorrhage if one’s there.”
“Hell, I gotta take a chance.”
Someone put a hand over her face, as if trying to smother her. Lindsey
felt something plugging up her nostrils, and for a moment she could not
breathe. The curious thing was that she didn’t care. Then cool dry air
hissed into her nose and seemed to force an expansion of her lungs.
A young blonde, dressed all in white, leaned close, adjusted the
inhalator, and smiled winningly. “There you go, honey. Are you getting
that?”
The woman was beautiful, ethereal, with a singularly musical voice,
backlit by a golden glow.
A heavenly apparition. An angel.
Wheezing, Lindsey said, “My husband is dead.”
“It’ll be okay, honey. Just relax, breathe as deeply as you can,
everything will be all right.”
“No, he’s dead,” Lindsey said. “Dead and gone, gone forever. Don’t you
lie to me, angels aren’t allowed to lie.”
On the other side of the bed, a man in white was swabbing the inside of
Lindsey’s left elbow with an alcohol-soaked pad. It was icy cold.
To the angel, Lindsey said, “Dead and gone.”
Sadly, the angel nodded. Her blue eyes were filled with love, as an
angel’s eyes should be. “He’s gone, honey. But maybe this time that
isn’t the end of it.”
Death was always the end. How could death not be the end?
A needle stung Lindsey’s left arm.
“This time,” the angel said softly, “there’s still a chance. We’ve got
a special program here, a real” Another woman burst into the room and
interrupted excitedly: “Nyebern’s in the hospital!”
A communal sigh of relief almost a quiet cheer, swept those gathered in
the room.
“He was at dinner in Marina Del Rey when they reached him. He must’ve
driven like a bat out of Hell to get back here this fast.”
“You see, dear?” the angel said to Lindsey. “There’s a chance.
There’s still a chance. We’ll be praying.”
So what? Lindsey thought bitterly. Praying never works for me.
Expect no miracles. The dead stay dead, and the living only wait to
join them.
Guided by procedures outlined by Dr. Jonas Nyebern and kept on file in
the Resuscitation Medicine project office, the Orange County General
Hospital emergency staff had prepared an operating room to receive the
action the moment the on-site paramedics in the San Bernardino Mountains
had reported, by police-band radio, that the victim had drowned in
near-freezing water but had suffered only minor injuries in the accident