On Call | Grey's Anatomy // Book 3 // COMPLETED

29 | Officer Down

Picture the life you dreamed of living...the person you pictured being with. Picture the job you'd dreamed you'd have. Are you living the life you envisioned for yourself? Are you who you wanted to be...when you grew up?

"So, he's just back?" I asked Meredith about the fact that Derek had returned, "For good?"

Meredith nodded, "Yeah."

Maggie scrunched up her eyebrows and stared at Meredith. "Okay, that face that you're making...I don't know you well enough to know what that means."

"You know those very happy, cheerful people who have everything and when the fact that they have everything comes up, they act very humble and they say, 'I'm just so blessed.'" Meredith looked to her, "Those people you want to punch those people in the face."

"Yes. I do know those people." Maggie told her.

"Yeah, I'm one of those people now."

Maggie and I both nodded. "Okay."

"This morning, I was standing on the porch of my perfect house looking in the window at my amazing, perfect children and my amazing, gorgeous husband, on the way to my amazing job." Meredith said, "And I thought to myself, 'I have everything I've ever wanted. I am just so blessed.'"

I sighed, "I really wanna pummel your face in right now."

"Right, I would beat myself up." Meredith chuckled, "Except I'm too tired from-"

"Were you about to say that you're exhausted from all the great sex you're having?" Maggie asked.

"I am just so blessed."

"I'm gonna walk away from you now." Maggie turned and started walking away.

Saying goodbye to Meredith, I made my way down to the E.R. where April was giving her speech about Trauma to the group of kids that had come for a field trip that day. "A trauma is any kind of injury." April explained as I stood beside her, "So, if you cut yourself or you break your leg skateboarding or wreck your bike, all of those injuries are called traumas, and that's what we are set up here to treat. Now, for a lot of people, the emergency room can be kind of a scary place, but it's actually-"

"Cool!" all the kids smiled as sirens wailed and a police car pulled up to the ambulance bay.

"I need some help over here!" a police officer called as he carried another officer inside.

I gestured to the closest, empty bed as Webber lead the kids away. "Right here, set him down."

"We got two guys down." the officer said as he set his buddy down, "We couldn't wait for the medics."

"Okay, I need a gurney." April called, "Trauma room is in there. Page Grey, Torres. Let's get cardio in here."

The officer looked down at his buddy who had a bullet wound. "Brett, they got you now, buddy. All right, you just relax."

As we got the officer into a trauma room, people started running into the E.R. "It was a bank robbery." the first officer, Dan, explained, "Three suspects held up the bank tellers at gunpoint. Brett and I moved in first, but as soon as they saw us, they panicked. They just started firing."

The officer I was treating along with Callie and Owen, nodded. "Hit me right through the side of my vest."

"Pete, try not to move your neck, okay?" Callie told him.

"What are we looking at?" Webber walked in, having handed the kids off to someone else.

Maggie looked up at him, "Two gunshot wounds to the upper-left chest cavity."

"At least three bullet holes in his left abdomen," I added.

"I'm gonna need access." Webber started grabbing the supplies he needed, "Here, I'm gonna start a subclavian line."

"Have they brought Brett in yet?" Pete asked, his voice strained.

Owen looked down at Pete. "He's being worked on right next door."

"Is he okay? He took the brunt of it."

"Two of them were armed." Dan spoke up again, "Brett took one of them down, then he grabbed the other one.
He ended the thing, even after he was hit. He's the only reason I'm standing here right now."

"Brett saved it." Pete chocked out.

Maggie looked up as one of the nurses held some scans up. "Blood's filling his chest cavity. He'll need bilateral tubes. Betadine."

"Then take him up right now and start an ex-lap." Owen ordered.

"Pete, we're gonna cut into your chest to place a tube that will help you breathe." Webber explained to the officer on our table, "Even with the pain meds, it's gonna hurt like hell, but it's the only way."

"All right, C-spine's clear. I'll get out of your way." Callie went to leave but stopped beside Dan, "Oh, whoa. Uh, hey, you're bleeding quite a bit there."

Dan shrugged it off. "I'm fine."

"No, you got shot in the leg." Callie shook her head, "Come on. Let's get you into a bed. I need a nurse in here."

As Callie walked off with Dan, a nurse came in to tell us that the officer's mother was here. Owen made sure we were good before he took off to update the, most likely, very worried mother.

"Pete, you ready?" Webber asked as we got ready to make the cut for the chest tube. Pete nodded but started to scream, like we expected, as Maggie made the first cut.

Once Owen returned, he made it very clear that we had to try like hell to save these cops, as Brett and Pete were brothers. I could only imagine what kind of hell that must have been for the mother; possibly losing both children in one day.

"How we doing, Pete?" Owen asked as he brought Pete's mother in.

"Thinking of going for a run," Pete said weakly as he removed his oxygen mask.

Pete's mother chuckled. "This one, always the wise guy."

"Does this remind you of that trip to the E.R. when I got hit by a pitch?" Pete asked.

His mother nodded, "You didn't even try to get out of the way."

"Nothing changes, right? I got to learn to duck. Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Remember that potluck we did a couple years ago? With all the guys in your backyard? When we get out of here, we got to do that again, okay? But bigger, m-more people. We'll invite these doctors. Everybody loved it."

"Okay." Pete's mother agreed, "Sure, honey."

"We were gonna make it an annual thing, remember? We never did. We got to do that-" Pete started to cough as the machines went off.

Pete's mother panicked. "Pete? Peter?!"

"We're gonna take good care of your boy, ma'am." Webber rushed over and lead Pete's mother out of the trauma room as we started working on him.

As Maggie walked back in, I noticed the large crowd of police officers that were gathered outside of the room. They were all lined up, staring through the windows as Maggie worked. Finally, we managed to get Pete back and we had a pulse and a heartbeat again.

"What's the story?" Amelia asked as she joined us.

"Traumatic arrest. Down for 14 minutes." Owen answered.

Sighing loudly, Amelia shone a light into Pete's eyes. "Pupils are fixed."

"We lost him?" I breathed.

Amelia took a few steps back. "No corneal reflex, either. I'll do a formal exam in six hours, but someone needs to prepare the family. He's most likely brain dead. I'm sorry."

Owen turned to me. "We lost him."

As Owen went to talk to Pete's mother, I had to take a minute. Sometimes these losses were just too much, especially when it was someone like Pete who was doing good for our city. He was funny and brave and this is how the world repaid him. Sometimes it just didn't make any sense.

What made it even worse was that one of the boys who was part of the robbery, only fifteen years old, was upstairs in surgery still alive.

A few hours later I was told that Brett was gone as well, the same way as Pete. He had suffered a large stroke during the surgery, which resulted in brain death.

Sometimes this job was too much.