Trauma Victim in the Emergency Room

The day started like any other. Quiet, but with an underlying vibration waiting to explode. Freshly brewed coffee and the sharp smell of disinfectant mixed in the air like a foreign perfume. Uniformed staff busied themselves with paperwork while waiting for the moment we all knew would come with the lunch hour approaching. It was a typical morning in the emergency room of Presby Plano.

We were all standing around, relaxed, discussing our previous weekend adventures. As the call came over the radio we swiftly took our places in expectation of what was to come. A construction worker was hit in the head with a 500-pound slab of granite swinging from a crane. The crane operator didn’t see him as he moved that solid piece of rock from one point to the next.

The soft rustle of protective gear being put on over scrubs filled the room as we methodically dressed for the trauma that was about to roll through the door. We tied masks with eye shields around our heads as carts wheeled past into the room in which we would perform our heroic duties.

“ETA, one minute.”, the radio crackled. We calmly looked at each other with the look of serious determination running across our faces, we shot each other glances that said, “We can make this right.” Lights swirled in the courtyard as we shuffled toward the rough sound of the ambulance’s motor. Doors swung open as patient history supplied by the EMT resonated over the sound of the truck. We parted like the waves of the Red Sea to let the gurney wheel by into the trauma room.

A calmness floated in the air as if giving cognitive reasoning a resounding voice. We assembled quickly and stood in our positions. I was only a volunteer, only there to observe, yet I was thrown quickly into the ...

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...e a jack hammer, catching a few of us off guard. Sterile water spewed from the spout of the irrigation device onto the skull of the hurt man. After a few minutes, the wound was clean and the bleeding controlled. Staples were clamped onto his head, closing the once gaping hole.

The doctor left the trauma room, leaving us to pick the bits of tissue from the hair that remained on the man's head. The two of us remaining gathered around his head and proceeded to snag the soft gobs of pink flesh from his hair as gently as possible, so as not to disturb our newly finished work. He was taken to another room to recover as we left the scene of the previous mayhem. Staff congratulated me on a job well done, as this was my first trauma. I felt proud and alive, I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I will never forget that moment realization hit home.