Page 85 of Fighting For You

Lori nodded once. She didn't argue.

Sullivan left the bay without looking at either of us.

I found her in the locker room forty minutes later. She was sitting on the bench with her back against the wall, still in her scrubs, her face blotchy and her eyes swollen.

"Lori."

"I checked the chart, Nora." Her voice was thick. "When I got the endorsement, I checked the chart. There was no critical flag. There was no pending result. I had no reason to go pull his labs independently because nothing told me to."

I sat down next to her.

"He's right that someone should have caught it. But I don't understand how a critical potassium sits in the system for forty minutes without generating a flag. That doesn't just happen."

I thought about the Zofran discrepancy months ago. The number that didn't match the order. I'd noticed it, filed it, and moved on because it was small enough to explain away.

This wasn't small.

"Sullivan's writing me up." She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. "A near-miss critical lab failure. I've never had an incident report with my name on it."

She dropped her hands and stared at the row of lockers across from us. Then she started crying, quietly, with her forehead against my shoulder.

I put my arm around her and held on.

The locker room door opened. Josie stood in the doorway, took one look at Lori, and came in without a word. She sat down on the other side of her and put a hand on her back.

"I heard," Josie said. "I'm pulling you off the floor for the rest of the shift. You're done for today."

Lori shook her head. "I can finish."

"That wasn't a question." Josie's voice was firm but her hand was gentle. "You're done, Lori. I'll cover your bays."

Josie looked at me over Lori's head. "Nora, I need you back out there."

I squeezed Lori's arm, stood up, and left her with Josie.

I went back to the floor, picked up my charts, and started reading through the updates on my bays.

The ambulance bay doors opened. I heard the rattle of wheels on linoleum and the paramedic's voice running the handoff.

"Thirty-two-year-old male, motorcycle versus vehicle, thrown from the bike at approximately thirty miles per hour. Helmet on at time of impact. GCS fifteen, alert and oriented. Multiple abrasions to the left arm and shoulder, contusion to the left hip, suspected sprains to the left wrist and ankle. No loss of consciousness, no midline tenderness, no obvious fractures."

I was moving before I made the decision to move. I reached the gurney and looked down.

Knox.

"Nora."

"Knox?" My hands were on the rail. "What happened?"

"A group of bikes boxed me in on Tropicana coming back from Travis's." He winced as the paramedic shifted the backboard. "One of them braked in front of me. I had to lay it down."

His left arm was raw from the road, blood seeping through the gauze the paramedics had taped over the worst of it. His jacket was shredded at the shoulder. His helmet was clipped to the rail, cracked along one side.

Cliff Sullivan was already coming down the hall. He saw the gurney, saw Knox on it, and stopped. For a second his face did something I'd never seen it do. Then he turned to the charge desk.

"Page Harlan. I need another attending on this patient."

He stepped back from the gurney.