These Questions
Chapter 24 - Freezing Waters, Part Four
"Carter!" Abby screamed.
He dismissed Chuny as he ran to Abby. She was hovering over a patient alone. She was using two hands to perform CPR desperately.
"What's going on?" Abby asked. "Why are all these people here?"
Carter swallowed. "I'm gonna go find out. You okay?"
She nodded. He noticed sweat coming down her forehead. He watched as she saved the patient, noting the man coming to. She sat back with a heavy breath, closing her eyes and shouting orders at a nurse to take him inside.
"Good job," Carter commented, before turning sharply to run over to someone. Everyone was calling his name in praise. He turned to no one, until he came to Susan. She was furiously working on a patient with Romano behind her.
"Romano?"
"Carter," she shouted in relief. "Oh, my God, you're here. We paged you an hour ago!"
"The traffic was unbelievable," he said. "We got a ride from some stranger. What the hell is going on?"
Susan shook her head as she shouted to the nurse beside her. He didn't recognize the nurse, but didn't stick to the thought.
"Some maniac," she said, "blew up half of Northwestern."
Carter froze. "What?"
She nodded, and started, but Romano took over. "Bomb threat to Northwestern. Half an hour later, the PICU's blown to bits, along with half of the HDU, the ER, and the OR. The building's still on fire and they're evacuating to Mercy."
"Oh, man," Carter said. "Oh, my God."
"Carter!"
The scream came over a million people at once and hit him. Abby was calling his name. She was in the middle of two patients with no one around her.
"How many people are out here?" he shouted as Susan, starting to walk to Abby.
"At least sixty, more on the way!"
Damn, he thought.
"Help, John," Abby said. The patients around her were all crying out in pain, complaining of the cold. Abby was trying to comfort a young girl on the gurney in front of her as Carter rounded behind her to the man.
"Please make my leg stop bleeding," the man pleaded. "It's killing me."
"What happened?" Carter asked, inspecting it quickly.
"Just a huge fire," he said. "It just burst into flames all of a sudden."
"What is he talking about, John?" Abby said, stroking the girl's head reassuringly. Carter walked over to her and whispered to her near her ear.
"Guy blew up Northwestern. Bomb threat and thirty minutes later, half the place is blown."
Abby whipped around. "Oh, my God. Who?"
He shook his head. "Romano and Lewis don't know any more than that."
"Oh, God," she said again. The little girl started to cry, so she turned to her. "Oh, sweetie. Where does it hurt?"
The little girl started to speak, but her head fell to the side. Abby reached back for Carter. "She's not moving, Carter. She isn't breathing!"
The entire scene was screaming with chaos. Still, the screaming, the crying, the sirens, the shouting. Commands coming from every direction flooded into him. Lights were darting across the entire area. He noticed some more ambulances coming toward him and cursed under his breath inaudibly.
"We're from Sacred Heart," a man shouted, stepping from the ambulance.
At that moment, there was a shriek. The majority of the people in the bay, including the paramedic, Abby and Carter, turned to see an ambulance driving in reverse forcefully. Romano jumped to the side of the ambulance, and emerged after it had stopped in a few seconds. John joined Romano in rushing to the rear of the truck, where Susan lay unconscious.
"Susan?" Romano shouted.
"Get her upstairs!" Carter screamed. "Romano, can you get this?"
He nodded determinedly and, with Lydia's help, eased her carefully onto a gurney. Carter ran back to the man waiting by the ambulance, but spoke to Abby first while the man demanded an excuse for his running away.
"Lewis just got hit by an ambulance," he said. As Abby gasped, he said, "this place is out of control."
"Well," the man interrupted, "we're from Sacred Heart. We're here to lighten your load."
"Sacred Heart?" Abby asked. "Where in the hell is that?"
"Fifty miles away," the man said. "Dupage County. Familiar?"
Abby didn't listen to the man. She turned to Carter. "Should we get the critical cases to Sacred Heart?"
"Carter!" Chuny shouted. "There are some ambulances from Mercy here to take some patients! Should I get the critical ones out of here?"
It was just like the scene from "Titanic." The one where the ship had finally sank into the ocean, and everyone was desperately trying to survive in the freezing waters. There was that much noise, and probably that much hope for survival.
"Dr. Carter?"
He turned to see another unknown face looking at him. He held his hand up to him, with a pair of keys on his hand.
"What is this?" Carter asked. He took the keys from the man and shoved them into his pocket.
"There's a closet behind the back exit over there," he said, pointing elsewhere. "Not really a closet, more like a shed."
"Yeah," he said, staring at him oddly. "Yeah I know."
"There's extra equipment in there."
"No there isn't," Carter corrected him. "There's nothing in there."
But the man had already started to run off. Carter didn't mind the man, apparently a paramedic, and turned around to see the crowd the way he'd left it.
"Alright," he shouted. He only managed to gather the attention of the sum around him, but he didn't expect much more. "We're getting as much critical cases as we can to Mercy; they're closer. Sacred Heart's gonna take some of the lighter ones. Get some of these patients inside, they're freezing their asses off out here."
"Which ones are Sacred Heart's and which ones are Mercy's?" an anonymous voice called.
Carter felt Abby's eyes on him in a hopeful stare as he put his hands on the back of his head. He ran to the side of the ambulance, climbed to the roof and stood on top of it.
"Carter," Abby said. "Be careful."
"Everyone, listen up!" Carter shouted as loudly as he could.
"Everyone, shut up!" Abby yelled.
"Hey, everybody, listen up for a second!" Chuny chimed in.
Soon the few of the nurses and PAs were shouting into the early morning to the rest of the crowd. It was a big one, taking up more than the ambulance bay could hold. Finally, it got as quiet as it would be. It was quiet enough.
"Okay," Carter said, now finding himself lost when he finally had all the attention he needed. "We need to get critical cases into Mercy's ambulances."
Jerry called his name and tossed a megaphone to him. Everyone looked at Jerry oddly for a second, but shrugged it off as Carter's newly magnified voice called out again.
"We need to get the critical patients to Mercy's ambulances." He looked around and stuttered freely into the device to his lips. "Um, let's see. Hey, all the Mercy drivers get up on the ambulances like I am now."
"No way," someone said.
"Come on!" Carter shouted. They didn't hesitate and obeyed him without a second questioning. "All of the worst, most critical patients that can't be taken care of here, get them to Mercy's, now!"
No one ignored him and immediately set to work. They fumbled for a while, running into each other and shouting at each other. But in the end of the grueling minute, they were running near smooth. As close as smooth would get.
"Now, less critical patients that can't be taken care of here," he called, "get 'em to Sacred Heart."
"How do we know which ones are Sacred Heart's?"
"Well," he said, "those would be the ones without the people on top of them! Come on, people! Let's go!"
He climbed halfway, then leapt down to the ground he tucked the megaphone under his arm and joined Abby at one of the gurneys and rushed the patient to the first Sacred Heart ambulance.
"Not bad, Carter," Abby said, breathing heavily.
"Dr. Carter!"
He and Abby spun around to see a woman approaching them.
"Mercy just received a call," she said over the events around her.
"And?"
"Bomb threat," she said.
[Part 25]