Angels in the ER (11 page)

I stood watching, and it was only then I realized how tightly I had been gripping the clipboard in my hands. I felt small and out of place.

One of Mr. Reid’s sons turned to me and said, “Doc, I know one of the paramedics that brought Mama in. I saw him in the parking lot a minute ago and he told me she was in bad shape when they picked her up. He told me you had done everything you could to try and save her. Moss and I here want to thank you for that,” he said, motioning with his head to his brother.

He held out his hand to me and I shook it, not knowing what to say.

I stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind me. I was alone, and I stood there for a few minutes. I looked down at the clipboard in my hand and felt a little foolish. What good would this flimsy piece of glued-together material have done me had these two big men and the teenager turned violent? And then I felt small again, remembering their response to the news of their mother and grandmother. These men, this family, were firmly grounded, and though their loss was sudden and awful, they had somehow maintained their composure. They had supported each other with a tangible love and a quiet dignity.

Yet you never know. You can never really predict how people will respond in these circumstances. You have to be watchful.

Always remember Rule Number One.

I walked back down the hall to the nurses’ station.

 6 

The
Generations Pass

All men are like grass, and all their glory
is like the flowers of the field.

—
I
SAIAH 40:6

I
t was a Saturday night around 9:30, and we had been really busy. Most of our rooms were full and the stack of charts for unseen patients kept getting higher.

I picked up the chart from the top of the pile, noted the room location, and headed off in that direction. I glanced briefly at the information at the top of the clipboard:

Minor trauma—C

William Purvis

35 yr old WM

Laceration of chest

“That’s a pretty bad one,” the triage nurse commented, nodding at the chart in my hand as she passed by.

Great. A complex laceration could take a while to repair, and all during that time the ER would be backing up. Well, we’d just have to see what it looked like.

William Purvis was lying on the stretcher of bed C. It was in the back right corner of minor trauma. Each bed in this room was encircled by ceiling-mounted curtains that could be drawn aside to create more open space or pulled around for privacy. Since he was alone in the room, the curtains had been pulled back and the room was open.

I walked over to his stretcher and pulled out the curtain that separated his bed from the one beside him. Should someone else come into minor trauma, I presumed Mr. Purvis would want some privacy.

“Mr. Purvis, I’m Dr. Lesslie,” I announced. “What happened to you this evening?”

He was lying comfortably, propped up by a pillow, and was holding a large gauze bandage across his chest. Blood had oozed through the cotton mesh in a few places.

“This!” he said, removing the gauze and revealing a twelve-inch gash that extended from his left nipple to the pit of his stomach. It was clearly down to muscle, but at the moment there was no bleeding. The pressure he had applied must have helped. He was obviously exasperated, and he dropped the bandage back on his chest.

It was then I noticed he was wearing black leotards and bright-red wrestling shoes. I studied his face for a moment, trying to place his name. He looked familiar, and then…it dawned on me.

“You’re one of the Bruiser Brothers, aren’t you?” I asked him.

He nodded without looking up at me. “Yeah, I’m Max.”

The Bruiser Brothers, Max and Irv, were two of my kids’ favorite wrestlers. They were some of the leading “bad guys,” and for some inexplicable reason my children identified with them. Hmm. In fact, I had seen them only a few weeks ago when they had come to town. I had been the “event physician” for a big wrestling extravaganza, performing a couple of required licensing examinations before the show. I was then required to be on hand lest something go wrong. It seldom did. These were well-trained athletes and usually things were well-planned and well-choreographed.

“Max, or William, I’m a big fan of yours.” I lied a little here. “Tell me more about what happened tonight.”

This half of the Bruiser Brothers was enormous. He must have been at least six-foot-five, and the chart said he weighed in excess of three hundred pounds. From what I could see, most of that weight was muscle.

He shifted slightly on the stretcher, wincing from the pain.

“We were wrestling over at the Civic Center this evening,” he began. “We’d just finished our bout and I was climbing out of the ring ahead of Irv. Just got down the steps when this old coot sitting on the front row jumps up with a knife and slices me. I got a glimpse of the blade—looked like a big hawkbill—but everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I couldn’t get out of the way quick enough—and then this,” he pointed to his chest again. “Irv jumped down the steps and coldcocked the guy.”

“Wow!” I remarked. “You’d think they’d have better security.”

“You’d think,” he agreed. “But this guy must have been in his seventies. I’d be more worried about some of the ladies sitting around him. They really get wound up.”

“What happened then?” I asked.

“I got out of there as fast as I could, that’s what happened,” he exclaimed. “That guy was crazy and I wasn’t hangin’ around. People were screamin’ and Irv was yellin’ and pushin’ me down the aisle. And here I am.”

It must have been mayhem. Those wrestling spots were always packed, and the crowd must have really reacted. And I was betting it would be on TV on the coming Saturday.

I had to check myself. Max was a patient now and not a celebrity. I needed to shift back into physician mode. Still, it was kind of interesting having him here. He wasn’t a movie star or the vice president, but he was famous, at least in this part of the country. Or maybe infamous.

“Okay, let me take a look at that cut,” I said, carefully removing the gauze. As I examined the wound I asked, “Has anything like this ever happened before?”

“You mean gettin’ attacked after a bout? No. Not to me. I’ve never been cut before. Matter of fact, I’ve never even had stitches. But as far as the wrestlin’, no, I’ve never been hurt. Sure, we get spit on and cussed at. That just goes with the territory. And one time, a lady hit Irv in the head with her pocketbook. But we’ve never really been hurt.”

He paused and shook his head, then glanced down at his exposed chest.

“How bad is it?’ he asked.

“Not too bad,” I answered. “It’ll be fine. You’re going to need a few stitches—actually quite a few—but it’ll do fine.”

Lori came into the room and began setting up a suture tray. I put on my surgical gloves and began the process of anesthetizing the edges of the wound. It took me about forty-five minutes to clean and close the laceration, but it came together nicely and would do well.

During that forty-five minutes, Max and I chatted about the vagaries of being a professional wrestler. It sounded like a difficult lifestyle, certainly not as glamorous as you might imagine. There was a lot of work and a lot of training. And then there was the issue of being a “bad guy.” Still, this was fascinating stuff.

As I was putting the finishing touches on my handiwork, I heard Lori come into the room and direct another patient to have a seat on the stretcher beside Max. Her voice came through the drawn cloth curtain.

“Sir,” she told the patient, “just make yourself comfortable here and the doctor will be with you as soon as he can.”

“Okay,” was the muffled reply.

“Looks like you’re gonna be busy tonight, Doc,” Max whispered, tilting his head in the direction of the adjacent bed.

“Yeah, but it’s Saturday night,” I answered. “What do you expect? Especially with a bunch of wrestlers in town.”

He chuckled, relaxing a little now that we were finished.

“Okay Max, we’ll need to take these stitches out in about ten days,” I instructed him. “Just keep this clean and dry. I’ll give you something for pain in case you need it and some cream to apply a couple times a day. As far as taking out the stitches, you can have your family doctor do it, or if you’re in the neighborhood, just come by here.”

“Thanks, Doc. Thanks a lot. Maybe I’ll see you the next time we come to town,” he replied.

“Yeah, maybe so. After I tell my kids about this, I’m sure they’ll
insist we all go to see you and Irv wrestle. Maybe they’ll get to shake your hand.”

“That’d be good,” he answered. “You just never know.”

A nice guy, I thought. Not the scowling, brooding eye-gouger presented on TV.

I stood and stretched, taking my gloves off and tossing them into the trashcan at the foot of the stretcher.

“One of the nurses will be back in just a minute and put a bandage on that,” I added in parting.

Stepping toward the door, I glanced at our newest patient. I stopped just out of Max’s line of vision and stared. There on the stretcher of bed D sat an elderly man, his hair disheveled and his shirt partially pulled out of his pants. He was looking down at the floor, holding his jaw with both hands. I could see that the left side of his face was swollen and bruised. A small trickle of blood made its way down his chin from the corner of his mouth.

A movement behind me drew my attention from the old man. Max had stood up and was getting his clothes together. He was supposed to wait for the nurse, but he might be getting impatient. I glanced back at this new patient. Was this a bizarre coincidence, or was this Max’s assailant? I couldn’t take a chance.

Without wasting another second, I stepped into the cubicle of bed D and pulled the curtain on around to completely enclose the area. The old fella looked up at me but didn’t say anything. I just stood there and smiled.

Lori walked into the room, asked Max to sit back down, and then dressed his wound.

After a few minutes she said, “There you go, Mr. Purvis, all done. Here’s a prescription for something for pain and some directions for taking care of this wound. The stitches come out in ten days. Any questions?”

“No, I think that about does it, ma’am,” he said. And then louder, through the curtain, “Thanks again, Doc.”

“Sure thing, Max,” I answered. The old man kept staring at me,
silent and puzzled. I just stood there and continued to smile at him goofily. When I was sure Lori and Max were well out of the room, I relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief.

Whew!
I collected myself and then addressed the patient. “I’m Dr. Lesslie. What can we do for you tonight?”

He looked up at me and slowly shook his head. As I looked closely at him, I thought he must be at least eighty. But it was a worn-out eighty, and in his wake were too many cigarettes and too much alcohol.

For a moment he didn’t say anything. Maybe he had been drinking and had fallen down, or been in an auto accident and struck his face on the steering wheel.