Page 7 of Rescuing Baylee
Man, he was pretty though. Tall enough for her to have to look up, he had thick, dark hair. He was muscular enough to look like he could be useful. And he had the most striking navy-blue eyes she’d ever seen, with thick dark lashes. She sighed, putting him out of her thoughts.
Tightening her ponytail, she headed out of the bathroom. If possible, the ED was in even more chaos. Within seconds, she found a team to help and lost herself in the bustle.
“Pediatric trauma team, squad arrives in thirty seconds,” the intercom said, and Baylee ducked out, heading toward the front doors. Jaylynn joined her, and they met Dr. Mendez on the sidewalk. “You guys ready,” Mendez asked, adjusting her mask on her face.
“Yes, ma’am,” Baylee said quickly.
Leona joined them, then, the big Black woman calm despite the excitement swirling around her. Baylee loved the woman’s energy, and she was so glad Leona was on their team. She’d been a pediatric nurse for more than thirty years, and it seemed like she’d literally seen everything under the sun. Baylee would trustLeona’s advice over anyone else’s in the hospital, including most of the doctors.
The Austin night was balmy, but heat lightning rippled the air. Maybe that’s what had spiked the aggression of the night. She could hear the bus coming, and she tugged at her gloves, trying to prepare for everything.
The ambulance screeched to a stop, and the medics jumped out. She recognized the team. They were a good pair, and they’d give their all for the patients. Abby started reeling off information as soon as she opened the door.
“We have Catalina Hernandez, 23, GSW to the abdomen. Caught in a crossfire. Family says she’s about thirty weeks, but they didn’t know if she’d been receiving prenatal care. BP keeps bottoming out, and we have a steady fetal heartbeat. Abdomen is distended and leaking clear fluid.”
“Jaylynn, check on the surgical suites,” Mendez said. “This is going to be an emergency C-section.”
They went to work on the mother. The woman wasn’t very old, but her belly was very pronounced. Baylee wondered if she wasn’t a little further along than thirty weeks.
Once they got her in the bay, they cut away her clothes and started hooking her up to machines. There was a lot of blood on the gurney, but it was pale, as if it was mixed with amniotic fluid. Baylee positioned the fetal heart monitor around the woman’s belly, finding the baby’s heartbeat on the first position. “There you are little man.”
Dr. Mendez called for an ultrasound. That would check for fluid in the abdomen, as well as the fluid around the baby. It might even spot the bullet, because there didn’t seem to be an exit wound.
Jaylynn rushed back in. “All three operating bays are in use, Mendez.”
“Fuck,” the woman muttered. “I don’t want to rush them, but let them know we have a gunshot victim, and we won’t know the status of the fetus until we get him out.”
Jaylynn disappeared again. Baylee doubted that it would do any good. C-sections took a while, and there were no trimming corners.
“Fetal heartbeat is steady,” she said.
Just then, the mother’s heartbeat stuttered. Another nurse, Rosalee, rushed in to offer help.
“She has something else going on,” Mendez muttered. “Look for a second wound. Rose, intubate her.”
They moved, checking every limb. Rose dropped the head of the bed and slid the tube expertly down the woman’s throat to breathe for her.
“Here,” Leona said, moving the woman’s arm. “She must have caught it when she was running.”
There was a tiny, bloody hole in the woman’s right side, up in her armpit. It crossed into her chest, and there was no exit wound. That was really, really bad. Too much vital stuff up there.
“She must be bleeding into her chest.” Mendez moved the ultrasound wand higher.
Then the mother’s heartbeat stuttered again. And stopped.
“Baylee, get that monitor off. Leona, I need the crash cart.”
Baylee quickly took the electronic fetal monitor off and watched as Mendez tried to save the woman’s life with the defibrillator. But no matter what she did, the young mother’s heart never picked up again.
“Jaylynn, call upstairs. I have three minutes to get this baby out and I would prefer to do it in an actual operating room.”
Nothing they did seemed to be right, though. There was no operating room to be had. And the other OBs were all occupied. This kid was going to have a hell of a time coming into the world.
“Go get an incubator. I think they still have one in storage B,” Baylee said to Jaylynn, and the younger woman took off running again.
Dr. Mendez did everything perfectly, even though the cards were stacked against them. Baylee retrieved the c-section kit from the storage unit, draped a sterile cloth over the operating field, and started setting out instruments. As soon as the doctor cut into the woman’s abdomen, bloody fluid gushed out. Mendez moved quickly. The mother was gone, and this baby was now their priority.
The little boy that she lifted up was good-sized, again, Baylee thought, probably more than thirty weeks. But he had a blue tinge to his skin, and he was unresponsive.