State of Shock

Sarah

It was after dark, and Sarah was just finishing her 12-hour shift in the ER. These kinds of days were always slow. A broken bone here, someone gushing blood over there. One girl came in looking for a morning after pill. They sent her to the Planned Parenthood office down the street. One thing that doctors learned is to never say to anybody that it’s slow. Nurses were deeply superstitious about how things moved within the hospital. It was like a Nurses Murphy’s Law. If you said it was slow, all of a sudden 6 trauma victims would show up from a car accident or something. 

Sarah went up in the elevator to do a check up on Stacy before she headed home for the night. Visiting hours were over, so Stacy’s parents weren’t with her. The lights were off, and it appeared as if she were sleeping. It was ironic to Sarah that they turn off the lights for coma patients. If they come out of it, would they really care if it were daytime or nighttime? If the lights were on or off? Disorienting as it might be. 

A nurse came over and handed her Stacy’s chart. “Vital signs still look good. She could still come out of this.” Sarah said to the nurse.

“I know, but what will her life be like when she wakes up?” The nurse looked a little concerned for their star patient over the last 3 months. 

“That’s something only she can answer. And we won’t know until she’s ready to wake up.” Sarah gave the chart back to the nurse and turned toward the elevator. She pressed the button for the parking garage. As the elevator went down, she contemplated what Stacy might have to say when she woke up. She knew that Elizabeth and Chris were very interested in Stacy and what she might have to say about “The Institution.” 

Sarah got out of the elevator and walked quickly toward her car. It was dark, and Sarah was always nervous around the parking garage after dark. She hurried to her car and got in, and locked the doors. Sarah’s anxiety was really bad after dark. She touched the left side of her face. The scars there reminded her of why things were so hard for her after dark. Her ex-husband would get so drunk during the day that he either passed out at 10, or started beating her. One night he took it too far. She was cooking dinner on their flat top stove and he threw the pan across the room and pushed her head down on the hot burner. In a series of blurry moments, she ended up in her car driving to the hospital when she took a curve too fast. A motorist saw the accident and called it in. She was lucky to be alive. 

Days later, Detective Elizabeth went to ask her some questions in the hospital. While the incident was still blurry, Sarah tried to recall as much information as possible. It was then that Elizabeth told her that her ex had checked into the hospital with a stab wound on his leg, the same night she had her accident. Elizabeth wanted to know why, and what had happened. Apparently while her face was being held on the hot stove, Sarah had found a kitchen knife and stabbed him in the leg and ran. 

Elizabeth took on Sarah’s case and managed to get her the best Prosecutor she could find. They managed to put the man in jail. Sarah still had a hard time driving at night, and evenings were hard. She looked up at her rear-view mirror. A picture of her and her now recently deceased boyfriend hung there. Her eyes misted up.

“Can’t cry now,” she said as she put her key into the ignition.