Today was pushing the entire staff to their physical and mental breaking points. Sandra knew the only way she could keep going was to focus on one task at a time, and attempt to block any thoughts of the situation outside the hospital from her mind. If she allowed herself to think outside these walls her imagination quickly went crazy with apocalyptic thoughts. At one point she seriously considered the notion that they were the only building left undamaged on the entire planet. It was a bizarre thought, but in her current state of mind it almost made sense. It made as much sense as anything else did today. Exhaustion had started to set in, and only the worst parts of her imagination were functioning.
She kept filling in for the other nurses one at a time. That way they could try to call and check on their families. The cell phone networks were overloaded, and most calls weren’t going through, but people still needed to try. If they didn’t get the chance to try she feared they would leave work to go in search of their loved ones. If people started doing that she had no idea how those who stayed would make it through the day, or how many more patients would die as a result.
“NURSE!” called a nameless doctor from behind a partition.
“Yes doctor,” she said as she rushed into the treatment area.
She did not recognize him, but today was an all hands on deck kind of a day. He was obviously associated with the hospital, but not in the normal ER rotation. He was probably a specialist of some kind. She didn’t care. A doctor was a doctor at this point.
“I need you to hand me instruments as quickly as you can as I call for them. This man has broken ribs, a collapsed lung, internal bleeding, and who knows what else. We need to open him now,” he said.
“Doctor, we don’t have general anesthetic here and I have no idea how to administer it even if it was,” she said hoping he wasn’t seriously going to do surgery on a patient with no painkiller in their system.
“He has lost consciousness. We’ll go without it. The alternative is that he dies. His blood pressure is so low that he can’t possibly wake up, and that pressure is only getting lower. If we don’t stop the bleeding he has no chance,” the man said.
With a deep sigh, Sandra moved over to the unknown doctor’s side and readied herself for what was to become a defining moment in her life. This was the first time, ever that she had seen another human cut open without any anesthesia. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like for him if he did regain consciousness.
They worked on him as fast as they could. She had no idea for how long. They quickly solved the collapsed lung and were attempting to control the internal bleeding. Every time one bleeder was closed, another one would spray blood in the air like a lawn sprinkler. One of them covered her in a fine bloody mist.
Some period of time later, with their clothes and hair soaked to the skin in man’s blood, they pulled a sheet over his head. They had failed to save his life. Blood supply of his type was gone at the hospital, and there had been no hope without putting new blood in to replace that which now soaked their clothes and covered the floor. The floor looked like there had been a burst pipe filled with red fluid and no buckets to catch it. The walls looked like someone with a can of spray paint went crazy.
They now understood there had really been no hope for this patient. The internal damage had been too severe, and he had not gotten help fast enough. But they had to try.
Sandra looked down at herself. Seeing just how much of the man’s blood was covering her caused her to lose control and cried for the first time that day. Dropping to her knees in a pool of slowly congealing blood she wept uncontrollably. The stress was just too much for this moment, and had finally overcome her wall of self-control.
The doctor, whose name she still did not know, put his arms around her. He held her as she cried. Release of stress was necessary or she was going to end up in the corner on the floor in the fetal position. She wiped her face and got off the floor. They left the treatment room to go change clothes and clean up as best they could, then get back to work without another word passing between them.
AP NEWS FLASH: Dallas Fort Worth and Detroit news outlets have said that gas station owners have raised their prices to $10 a gallon. Bottled water is currently going for $5 per bottle. All traffic in the area is in the outbound direction. Many injured people wanting to evacuate as quickly as possible have caused traffic, even on one way streets, to be away from the blast zones. All reports say these areas are in a state of pure chaos. <STORY DEVELOPING>
AP ECONOMIC NEWS FLASH: Medical supplies in the impacted areas are already running low, if not exhausted. With the recent reduction in oil shipments, and this new attack, no one is sure when a large amount of new supplies will be available due to possible shipping issues. Domestic prices on medical supplies have started increasing. International stock futures on medical supply companies are trending much higher with double digit increases due to speculators looking for a way to cash in on the current crisis facing the United States and Israel. This has caused some public outcry that this type of profiteering should not be allowed. Investors claim these companies are likely to need the additional capital to expand in order to fill the massive spike in demand. Oil prices on the international markets have surpassed their all time high with no end to the increases expected. Domestic oil and gas companies have stated that increasing their output will take several months.
Chapter Sixteen
As Air Force One approached Fort Worth the pilot reduced altitude so that President Press, and all the others on board, could see the devastation for themselves. They were less than a mile above ground and flying as slowly as the heavily modified 747 could manage. If they ventured any lower it would cause those on the ground to have a noise problem. Anyone attempting any kind of rescue operations would have enough issues to deal with right now, and not being able to hear each other speak due to a massive jetliner passing low to the ground might just be one too many.
The pilot thumbed the intercom button and stated with a shaky voice, “Mr. President, my fellow Americans, if you look out the windows on either side of the aircraft, you will see the destruction that was brought upon our country this morning coming into view momentarily. We can see it out the front window right now. Words escape me on how best to describe what I see. It is worse than anything I could have possibly imagined, even in the worst of my nightmares.”
The President looked out his airborne office window and waited in dread for the horrible destruction to come into view. He was thankful that no one in the office was speaking. He had to think.
He was grateful for the opportunities this country had given him. This country he loved. The one he had sworn an oath to protect and defend.
Protect it he would. By any means necessary.
These things must not occur again. No matter what the personal or professional cost. Those who did these things would answer for their heinous actions. He told the American people that the country would survive, and he intended to ensure that was exactly what happened. America would survive and somehow be stronger for this. Now if he only knew how to be sure he could make that happen.
The scene outside the window was a normal landscape with homes, office buildings and roads. It was just like most any suburban landscape anywhere in the world. The structures were growing in density as they approached the city, exactly the way he would have expected in a normal suburban area surrounding a major city. Right here everything seemed fine.