Blindsighted (Grant County #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,61
around the palms of the woman’s hands. Sara lifted one of the hands to examine it, and the arm moved awkwardly to the side. There was an obvious dislocation at the shoulder.
Sara looked back at the woman’s face and was startled to notice that a silver piece of duct tape had been wrapped around her mouth. Sara couldn’t remember if the tape had been there before she had gone back into the hospital. Surely she would’ve noticed it before. Something like a taped mouth wasn’t easily overlooked, especially when the tape was at least two inches across by four inches long and dark silver. For just a brief second, Sara felt paralyzed, but Lena Adams’s voice brought her back to reality.
“It’s Julia Matthews,” Lena said, but her voice sounded far away to Sara.
“Sara?” Hare asked, walking quickly over to the car. His mouth dropped open at the sight of the nude woman.
“Okay, okay,” Sara mumbled, trying to get herself calm. She shot Hare a look of sheer panic, which he returned in kind. Hare was used to an occasional overdose or heart attack, nothing like this.
As if to remind them both of where they were, the woman’s body began to convulse.
“She’s going to be sick,” Sara said, picking at the edge of the tape. Without pausing, she ripped off the tape. In one swift motion, she rolled the woman onto her side and held her head down as she vomited in fits and starts. A sour smell came, almost like bad cider or beer, and Sara had to turn away to take a breath.
“It’s okay,” Sara whispered. She stroked the woman’s dirty brown hair back behind her ear, remembering that she had done the same thing for Sibyl just two days ago. The vomiting stopped abruptly, and Sara gently rolled her back over, keeping her head steady.
Hare’s tone was urgent. “She’s not breathing.”
Sara cleared the woman’s mouth with her finger, surprised to feel some resistance. After a few seconds of digging, she pulled out a folded driver’s license, which she handed to a surprised Lena Adams.
“Breathing’s back,” Hare said, relief flooding his voice.
Sara rubbed her fingers clean on her skirt, wishing she’d had on a pair of gloves before she had stuck her fingers into the woman’s mouth.
Ellen jogged to the car, her jaw set as she angled a long stretcher in front of her. Without words, she stepped to the woman’s feet, waiting for Sara’s signal.
Sara counted to three, then they both moved the woman onto the bed. Sara felt a sick taste in her mouth as they did this, and for a few seconds she saw herself on the bed instead of the woman. Sara’s mouth went dry and she felt a numbness overcome her.
“Ready,” Hare said, strapping the woman to the bed.
Sara trotted beside the gurney, holding on to the young woman’s hand. The time it took them to get back into the hospital was interminable. The bed seemed to be rolling through glue as they entered the first trauma room. The woman made small murmurs of pain with each jolt of the bed. Briefly, Sara latched on to the woman’s fear.
Twelve years had passed since Sara had practiced emergency medicine and she needed to concentrate on the tasks at hand. In her head, Sara went over what she’d learned her first day in the ER. As if to prompt Sara, the woman started wheezing, then gasping for air. The first priority was to establish an airway.
“Jesus,” Sara hissed as she opened the woman’s mouth. Under the bright lights of the exam room, Sara could see that her top front teeth had been knocked out, obviously within the last few days. Again, Sara felt herself freezing up. She tried to shake this off. Sara had to think of this woman as a patient or they would both be in trouble.
In seconds Sara had intubated the woman, careful with the tape so as not to do further damage to the skin around the mouth. Sara fought the urge to cringe as the ventilator kicked in. The sound almost sickened her.
“She’s got good sounds,” Hare reported, handing Sara a stethoscope.
“Sara?” Ellen said. “I can’t get a peripheral.”
“She’s dehydrated,” Sara reported as she tried to find a vein on the woman’s other arm. “We should drop a central anyway.” Sara held her hand out for the needle, but one was not immediately placed in her hand.
“I’ll get it from two,” Ellen said, then left the room.