Page 13 of The Family Cross

“Sarah, I’m sorry to interrupt, but my grandmother has had a bad fall.”

“Mrs. Cross?”

“Broke her arm and hit her head. Seems in and out of consciousness. We have her outside in Sampson’s pickup on a jerry-rigged backboard because there were no ambulances available to come get her.”

“Every ER in the city is slammed, for some reason,” Sarah said. She grabbed her phone and called for a gurney and nurses. When she hung up, the young mom complained, “We were here first.”

“The emergency department is not first-come, first-served,” the nurse said softly. “Your daughter is stable and she can wait just a few minutes longer.”

Two nurses burst through the ER double doors with a gurney.

“I’m sorry to cut the line,” I said to the mom, then hurried after the nurses, calling, “She’s just outside. We had to improvise a backboard.”

“Can she talk?” one nurse asked, a burly guy with a beard. His name tag said PATRICK.

I said, “I think she knows when I’m talking to her, but she hasn’t verbally responded to anything. There’s blood coming out of her mouth, like maybe she bit her tongue on impact.”

Sampson waited behind the F-150, its tailgate down. Nana Mama, on the rescue board, was already on the tailgate.

“On her belly—that’s different, huh, Rich?” Patrick said to the other nurse.

Sampson growled, “This is exactly how we found her except for the neck collar.”

“We didn’t want to roll her over,” I explained.

“Good call, actually,” said Rich. “Let’s keep her like this until a doc has examined her.”

“Agreed,” said Patrick.

We got out of their way as they lifted the board onto the gurney and strapped it down.

I looked at Sampson. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know something.”

“Praying for her, brother,” Sampson said. “You know how much I love her.”

“I’ll take your prayers. And she loves you too.”

The effort it took to speak about her in the present tense made me sink with sadness as John put up the tailgate and closed the rear window of the cap.

“Her name? Medical history? Your relationship?” asked Patrick, the bearded nurse, as they turned the gurney toward the ambulance bay entrance.

“Regina Cross, history of heart issues,” I said, following. “I’m Alex, her grandson. I have her medical durable power of attorney.”

“Is that on file here?”

“Yes, and her advance directive,” I said. I continued to tell him what I knew as we went up a ramp and through automatic double doors and into an emergency department jammed with patients.

A charge nurse came over, said, “Bay four just opened, what do we got?”

“Regina Cross, elderly female with cardiac history, fell down a short flight of stairs and hit her head on a brick patio,” Rich said as he and Patrick wheeled Nana Mama into a treatment bay. “Lost consciousness. Right arm looks fractured. Bleeding from the right side of her head and her mouth.”

“Let’s get vitals,” the nurse said. “I’ll get Dr. Ames to assess how we should handle moving her.”

“Sydney Ames?” I asked. “The trauma surgeon?”

“The same,” Rich said, starting an IV.

“She’s a friend of mine,” I said. “Friend of my grandmother’s too.”