Nurse Bailey felt something amiss as she
walked into her ward after her midnight lunch
break. The ward was pin
drop silent with all the
children sound asleep,
except for one. It was 1 am and her usual routine began from room 213. She
walked over to the
receptionist desks to see many of her colleagues engrossed with piles of paperwork
and some of them having a silent nap. Bailey carefully picked up a brown file
from under the desk in front of her without making a noise, so that she
wouldn't disturb her fellow co-workers. Haphazardly, even a
ghost couldn't go past Nurse Tara without her noticing. Tara looked up to
Bailey and plainly said, "There's a new girl in room 213, she hasn't eaten or spoken
much, maybe you could get her to-"
Bailey cut off Tara, "Don't worry, I'll get her talking in no
time," Bailey whispered with high spirits. Nurse
Bailey was known to be the night cheer of the ward, spreading her quality
through all the children and their families. She was the perfect companion the
children looked out for and the children's pain reliever from
their medications and surgical procedures. In her whole 15 years career at LRI,
there has not been a single night of dullness. Tara gave
Nurse Bailey her medical equipment box. Whilst reading the brown file, Bailey
strode over to the room to meet the silent child. She lightly knocked on the
door and entered the room, not once taking her eyes off the file that she was
intently reading. She placed her box on an armchair besides where she stood. It
was tar black inside the room, so Bailey walked over to the room side lamp and
the light flickered on. As she turned around, she saw various IVs scattered on
the floor around the bed. Bailey looked at the patient and saw both arms of the
child loosely sitting over the edges of the bed. She then looked up to the
heart rate monitor
and saw the 'flat line of death'. Bailey ran over to the child and placed her
back on to the bed properly, patting her cheeks trying to awaken her from her
deep sleep. She was as hot as a burning fire. Bailey frantically ran out of the
room shouting for the attending doctor. This startled the nurses and the doctor
came running straight towards his call's epic centre.
"What's wrong Nurse Bailey"? Asked the doctor, confused.
"Dr Carlos, the girl in... 213... She-," Bailey tried to
get back her breath.
Dr Carlos placed
his hand upon Bailey's shoulder and frowned, "What's
wrong with her Nurse Bailey? What's wrong with Sam?"
"S-sam is... She flat-lined," Bailey
breathlessly stated.
Without further ado, Dr Carlos sped over to Sam's room to see her
lifeless.
Bailey and other nurse staff barged into the room and placed an
oxygen mask over her face, manually pumping fresh oxygen at certain intervals.
Dr Carlos took hold of the electrode paddles, "Charge to 200," the
nurse followed orders.
"Clear," he placed the paddles on Sam's chest. BOOMPH!
"Charge to 250," he barked! Again BOOMPH! Still the
'flat line of death' was streaming.
"Charge to 300," he whispered. Dr Carlos slowly placed the
paddles down one more time and the result was a final BOOMPH! He stood
back and plainly stated, "Time of death, 1:16am," with his head down,
he walked out of the room. Bailey rushed behind him and turned him around,
"I think it was an attempted murder, all her needles were on the floor. I
need to see the CCTV of the room. The doctor stiffly nodded and both of them
walked towards the security room at the end of the corridor. Dr Carlos spoke briefly to the
security officer and the guard placed in a tape of the room approx. taped from
5pm. It had shown a teenage lad wearing a blue jacket and red jeans entering
the room. Fast forwarding the tape by 31 minutes, he had started conversing with
Sam. The boy turned around for a fraction of a second and Dr Carlos immediately recognized him. He was a sibling of another patient that he was dealing with. He carried on
watching the whole tape and was horrified how the boy grabbed onto Sam's wrists
just below where the IVs were placed. Squeezing her fingers, she yelped in pain
as the needles poked in out of her veins as he rocked her wrists back and
forth. Her tears bleeding from her eyes, she tried to free herself from his
grip by lightly kicking him; however the thin cotton blanket was snugly fit
around her, preventing her release from this devil in front of her. Dr Carlos
left the room immediately before telling Bailey that he would handle this
issue.
Carlos casually walked over to the Sade's room where their daughter
had been admitted for severe food poisoning. He didn't knock and walked
straight into the room startling the small family.
"Hello, I'm Dr Carlos and I'm here to tell you that you are free to
go."
"What?! Are sure you have cleared all the poison?" Shouted
the father.
Dr Carlos confusingly asked, "Poison?"
The mother's nose flared, "Yes! The food poisoning that our
devious adopted daughter gave to our René,"
René on the
other hand was scared from all the noise and called out for Sam, which angered
both parents even more. The mother continued, "She's gone from our lives,
she tried to kill you."
"But..." René tried to
argue.
Rubix looked up at his family and then finally the doctor who was
staring straight at him with a mean glare. He took the look as for him to leave
the room immediately.
Carlos addressed the parents again, "And where is she
now?"
"We kicked her out," both parents simultaneously stated.
"You did what?! She could be dying right now!" Carlos
bellowed
The father not feeling one bit of remorse, "Good riddance, she
tried to kill my girl with poison, we can only expect karma to come back to
her."
"I hope you didn't mean that," Dr Carlos retorted back.
Feeling offended, the father asked, "What d'you mean?"
"There was no poison found but yes there were nut traces found
in the blood which would of have caused the nausea. Is René allergic
to nuts?" Replied Dr Carlos
Mr and Mrs Sade looked at each other confused, "Yes, but Sam
made spaghetti Bolognese for dinner- how did nuts-"
René spoke up
finally, who couldn't take the insults that were placed on her beloved elder
sister. "Rubix gave me a Cornetto before dinner, the chocolate one-"
"With nuts," Carlos finished, folding his arms across his
chest.
René looked up
at her parents. She was disgusted by their behaviour towards her sister who
would be the first person of contact, always taking the blame for her even when
her parents knew who was surely to blame. The sister who cooks nearly every
evening because of their parents 'heavy work schedule'. Who were they fooling;
all three children and neighbours knew that Mr and Mrs Sade spent more time at
parties than home. René just
couldn't look at these people anymore and looked away with hate. Sam came to
them as a gift and they easily tossed her away.
Mrs Sade fell to the floor with a fresh batch of tears flowing down
her red cheeks. Her hand covering her mouth trying hard to control her sobs
whilst her other hand clamped to the metal bed frame, balancing her body
weight. She sighed heavily, "What have we done? Sam! She could be
anywhere.
Carlos shook his head vigorously. His sight caught René who looked
up at him with a pleading face. He placed a fragile hand on her head and in
return René wrapped
her arms around Dr Carlos' waist tightly, as if he would disappear any second.
Carlos smiled at the little girl and held her head close to him.
René quietly
whispered, "Doctor, will you help to find my Sam?" René broke the
hug and began explaining what she looked like, "She's 15, her sweet 16 is
next month. She has dark brown hair, shoulder length, a fair complexion with a
green stone ring on the fourth-finger of her right hand. She has a gold and
silver bracelet on her left. It has my initials on it and I have hers,
see," René presented
her left wrist to Dr Carlos.
Carlos' eyes widened as René told him
Sam's description and how it perfectly matched with the young girl Sam who just
passed away. He crouched down to René's level and asked her if she had a picture of Sam. She pulled the
locket away from her neck and opened it up to show Sam's picture. "She
bought me this for my 7th birthday, from her lunch money," René gleefully
said, looking at the picture of them both. Carlos genuinely smiled at the bond
they shared. He held out his hands, "May I?" he asked René if he
could take the locket. She obeyed and watched him walk over to Mr and Mrs
Sade. Carlos dangled the locket in front
of them like an ancient hypnotising stopwatch.
"This is Sam, right?" Dr Carlos plainly asked.
Both of them nodded silently, too shocked to say anything in this
moment of trauma.
"She passed away 15 minutes ago, she suffered from lobar
pneumonia, it engulfed her whole right lung", right on cue Rubix
re-entered the room and Dr Carlos continued, "It was an attempted murder,
Rubix will now explain why and how he managed to give René an allergy
attack and kill your 'devious adopted daughter', right Rubix?"
Rubix froze as everyone turned towards him with tumultuous expressions. Carlos stepped
out of the room, sighed heavily and thought 'sometimes, the harsh reality has to be laid out in front of you.'
- 09/04/14
"Life is a dream for the wise, A game for the fool, A comedy for the rich, A tragedy for the poor"
- Sholem Aleichem (Solomon Rabinovich)
