When Danger Strikes

Chapter 1

"Sinclair! Incoming!" I hear a voice yell and snap my head up from the paper work I was currently filling out at the ER counter. Before I even think about it I've dropped the pen and am running towards the ambulance bay, my running shoes gripping the slick tile floor as I turn the sharp corner of the nurses station desk.

"What do we have?" I chase my attending, Dr. Encarda, thanking my six years of track and field training and conditioning for helping me catch up to her.

"Apartment complex caught fire, we've got plenty coming in now and more on the way. LA Fire is working on the flames, but they're still pulling people out of the building, Los Angles Central Medical is the closest and most equipped to handle this kind of emergency," Dr. Encarda finishes just as we burst out the door and hit the warm outside air. She snaps her gloves on just as the ambulance is pulling up and calls back to me over her shoulder with a smile, "And Mary, you're my go-to."

I pull the blue latex gloves on as quick as I can and raced behind her with a small smile on my face. It's an awful situation, but it feels good to know one the best doctors in the hospital trusts me to be her first choice resident.

Before I can think much more about it the ambulance turns into the parking lot and slides into its place on the deck. The back doors are thrown open and paramedics and firefighters hop out, pulling a gurney out with them. The second the doors are open my eyes are on the young boy strapped to the stretcher. I feel my eyes go wide and my breath hitch in my throat. My mind registers the voices around me and everything they're saying. The numbers bounce around in my mind; age, weight, pulse ox, heart rate, and blood pressure all storing themselves into the new file cabinet being filled with facts about this teenage boy in front of me. I'm hearing everything around me and everything they're saying is registering, the thing stopping me in my tracks is what I'm seeing.

"No freaking way," I breathe out quietly, following the groups of doctors and first responders in through the ER entrance.

But my eyes stay glued to the shiny air horn covered in Happy Birthday print-

-sticking out of the boys left eye.

***

Hey friends!

I'm not even sure if anybody is going to read this, but I just needed to write this to express the growing love I have for Evan Buckley and the show 9-1-1.

Elle