Seeking Relief

Phone Circus

Mitch’s phone rang, he quickly pulled in a side street and into a parking lot of another dark business. He sighed with relief when he saw the name on the screen.

“Hey.” He answered.

“Melissa said you wanted me to holler at you. I take it this is about our so called suicide victim?”

“Yea. You say so called, let me guess, you don’t think she was trying to commit suicide either?”

“She wasn’t. I don’t think she attempted to kill herself. She’s already regained consciousness and I had a long chat with her.”

“WHAT? When they lose consciousness like that doesn’t it take a while for them to come out of it? Like a long f*****g time?”

“Well. It’s not weeks or anything. But I wasn’t expecting to see her eyes until tomorrow morning at the earliest.”

“So?” Mitch asked, pressing for more information. He heard Adam sigh hard on the other end. If he knew his friend, he had his head leaned against a wall, pressing his eyes with his fingers. The man runs himself hard and everyone knows it.

“Mitch. Uhm. I’m assuming you already looked into her some on your end.”

“Yea. Adam,” Mitch paused and took a breath to ready himself to tell his friend what he knew, “she has a restraining order against her ex. It was granted only 2 months ago. She has regular interaction with a battered woman’s group.”

“I f*****g KNEW IT.” Mitch heard a loud thump. He suspected it was a fist against the wall.

“Adam. What’s going on? Is her ex there? Do we need to get an arrest warrant out?”

“No. No. Uhm.” Adam pauses and he takes a breath, “Mitch, she was here before. A few of us had suspicions she was being abused, but a particular nurse didn’t follow protocol and Jade slipped through the cracks. It took some time on my part to get her to answer my questions because she is fearful and mistrustful. She has all the tell tale signs of a victim of domestic abuse.”

“I’m not surprised about that. But that doesn’t explain her accidental overdose.”

“It’s part of it. I suspect she has a lot of untreated injuries. She’s in a constant state of extreme pain. She must have had a bad night, and just kept taking medicine chasing relief. Then she, ah, she lost track of what she took.” Adam paused. “Mitch. We pumped her stomach. Only bile came up. So, all the medicine she took was absorbed. She had an extremely high toxicity level. Her BAC level wasn’t anything to scoff at. We gave her all the proper antidotes to combat the overdose, and of course pumped full of fluids. Under all pretenses, she should have been out for the count tonight. But she woke up. And she was f*****g lucid.”

“Okay. The fact she was awake and lucid seems to bother you. Why?”

“She metabolized everything unusually fast. That’s usually indicative of someone with chronic pain who takes medicine regularly. Mitch, she barely noticed her sternum and rib pain from when Jake did her CPR.”

“Oh.” Mitch paused a thoughtful moment then continued, “Anyone else I would have suggested that they didn’t do CPR correctly.”

“I agree. But it was Jake. I’ve seen obese grown men complain rightfully of their pain after Jake’s given them CPR. I don’t doubt Jake’s skills for a second.”

“So she has chronic pain, takes medicine, loses track of what she’s done, takes too many and passes out?”

“Yea, that’s what I think. And there’s more to it, I’ll fill you in later. I have a feeling you guys will want to unwind together after our shifts.”

“You know us well.”

“Okay. Holler at Jake. We’ll do breakfast at the café next to the hospital. My treat. I---” Adam paused.

“I gotta go.” He said quickly and hung up. Mitch was a little confused, but not surprised. But he was a little concerned because whatever happened, it wasn’t good. He was glad that that wasn’t how his shift was going tonight.

Mitch swiped through his contacts and dialed Jake.

“Hey!”

“Hey. We’re meeting at the cafe next to the hospital for breakfast after our shifts.”

“Okay. I’m assuming you’ve talked to Adam.”

“Yea. You’re not driving, are you? It’s Emmett driving?”

“Yea.”

“Okay brace yourself. So short story is that she has an awful amount of chronic pain. She was taking medicine for relief of the pain. She lost track and accidentally overdosed.”

“Jesus, how much pain are you in to do something like that?!”

“Jake. Adam said she didn’t even notice her chest pain from you administering CPR.”

“Are you f*****g FOR REAL? Holeeeee f**k. And ---Wait a sec. She woke up?!”

“Yea. Adam said she was pretty lucid, too. He’s as surprised as you are. He said she had absorbed all the medication and had a pretty high BAC. Yet she woke up and was lucid.”

Jake did a low whistle.

“Jake, brace yourself for this one.”

“Go for it.”

“She’s the victim of domestic abuse. Adam’s beating himself up, because she could’ve been given help earlier through the hospital since she was there for an ER visit before. She has a 2 month old restraining order on her ex. Adam believes that Jade’s chronic pain is from untreated injuries, and he thinks those injuries are results from her abuse.”

“f**k!” Jake spat out the curse. Mitch couldn’t agree more. Then Mitch heard Emmett speak up, Jake must have the phone on speaker so Emmett can stay caught up, too.

“She must not have a primary doctor. No way in hell a competent physician would let this kind of s**t go with a patient of theirs.”

“Your guess is as good as mine, bro.” Jake said. Mitch had a feeling that the answer to that isn’t that simple. Some officers in the force have developed a sixth sense so to speak. Some have stronger “gut instincts” than others. Amongst his fellow officers Mitch was known as a pitbull. Because he refuses to let an issue go and he will follow it to the end, he’s developed a reputation for never letting something go once he has a bite on it. Mitch has strong instincts and he never ignores them. He did ignore it once, with disastrous results. He refuses to make that mistake again. He was jarred from his wandering thoughts when he heard Emmett speak up again.

“Adam said that she woke up and that he spoke to her?”

“Yea.”

“What was his gauge on whether her ‘accidental overdose’ was playing off an actual suicide attempt or if she legitimately accidentally overdosed?”

“He’s confident it was all accidental. Not sure if you caught it, or Jake, if I told you, I saw what her prescriptions were. Nothing was for mental illness or depression. It was all for migraines and for pain. Adam thinks she’s used to taking so much medicine on a normal basis anyways, so pair that nonchalance with being drunk, and it just became a recipe for disaster.”

“Wait.” Emmett cut in. “She has prescriptions? Are they current?”

“I can see your gears turning.” Jake said. But Mitch was catching onto Emmett’s train of thought. They assumed she didn’t have a doctor. If she had one and he was ignoring his patient, this clusterfuck will have even more s**t thrown into it.

“Hang on.” Mitch said. He pulled his phone away from his ear, tapping the phone to speaker before hitting his home button he swiped through his app icons to his pictures. He pulled up every picture of her prescription bottles, he had left the actual bottles with the nursing staff at the hospital, but he took quick pictures before bagging them. Maybe not quite HIPAA compliant, but when this s**t storm blew over, he’d destroy the pictures. He wasn’t going to post or share them, but he knew they could prove to be useful in helping Jade. There were 6 bottles and a box total. Five of the bottles had a Montana address and he knew they were from her doctor before moving. But one of the bottles that was an anti-inflammatory and the box of a migraine medicine had her current address. He zoomed in on the picture looking for the name. He said it out loud.

“Dr. Goff”

Immediately and simultaneously Emmett and Jake yelled curses.

Well, that answered that question.

He returned to the call icon and took the call of speaker again. When he brought it back to his ear, he spoke.

“I, uh, take it you guys know the guy.”

“He’s a f*****g QUACK!” Emmett erupted.

Whoa.

Emmett usually is the one with the cool head.

“I’m so f*****g pissed, I can’t even see straight.” Jake ground out. Mitch swore he heard a soft thump.

“DUDE! Not on the dash, save that s**t for your own property.” Emmett said.

Several moments of silence passed before something was said again.

“Well. That answers your question.” Jake said, sounding mostly calmed back down.

“What question is that?” Mitch asked.

“Not yours, Emmett’s. She DID have a primary doc. And he DID ignore her.”

“I’m going to ask around my department. Surely someone knows a malpractice lawyer.”

“Why didn’t she switch doctors?” Emmett asked in agonized tone.

“I don’t know man.” Jake said.

“Well. Finish your shift and meet us at that café when you’re done checking the ambulance back in.” Mitch said.

“Will do.” Jake said. They said they’re good bye’s and clicked off. Mitch set his phone down, threw his cruiser back in drive and drove out of the parking lot. Moving on with his patrol route and shift.