She wiped away the first flood of tears and regained her composure after a few sniffles. She lovingly touched his face and said, “Honey, I’m here for you. I love you so much.”
Owen’s eyelids fluttered and opened slightly, staring directly upward. Both Dr. Brady and Dr. Forrest stepped a little closer to the bed.
“Recognition,” whispered Dr. Brady. “A great sign.”
Lacey continued. “Tucker’s here with me. Our son is a very brave young man. You’ll be so proud of him.”
Owen’s eyes shifted from left to right. Then up and down. Tucker picked up on his eye movements and presumed his dad was searching for him. He continued to hold his mother and leaned over the bed.
“I’m right here, Dad. We’re all together again.”
Then Owen did something that sent elation through the minds of everyone in the room. He blinked rapidly, and a slight smile came over his face. Lacey began to cry again.
“That’s right, Owen. We’re all here. All three of us are together again, and we’re gonna make it through this. You’ll see. We love you so much. Just hang in and get—”
Lacey stopped mid-sentence as Owen’s body convulsed, and then his chest heaved, lifting him off the bed. Alarms started going off, and lights flashed on the monitoring equipment on both sides of the bed.
Nurse Ruiz rushed around the back of Lacey and Tucker. She shouted to the doctors, “He’s in V-fib!”
Ventricular fibrillation was a dangerous level of arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat. Owen’s heart rate elevated rapidly, and the cardiac monitor indicated rapid, erratic electrical impulses.
“What’s happening?” asked Lacey in a loud voice.
“What’s wrong with my dad?”
Dr. Brady approached Owen from the other side of the bed. Just as he arrived, Owen went into cardiac arrest and flatlined. A solid, horizontal line appeared on the electrocardiogram monitor affixed to Owen. It meant all electrical activity had ceased in the brain.
“Please move back,” ordered Dr. Forrest. Ruiz assisted Lacey back into her wheelchair and brusquely pulled her against the wall. Another nurse was forceful with Tucker as well. They needed to save Owen’s life, and now was not the time for politeness.
“No pulse!” shouted Dr. Forrest, who pressed two fingers to Owen’s carotid artery.
Dr. Brady was pumping on Owen’s chest in an effort to restart his heart. He shouted instructions as he did.
“Bag him!” A reference to the use of a large, balloon-like manual resuscitator that forces air into a patient’s lungs.
“Push epi!” he ordered next, looking directly at the monitor and Ruiz. She immediately injected epinephrine into Owen’s saline drip. Epinephrine increased the arterial blood pressure in an effort to reverse cardiac arrest.
“It’s not working!” shouted Dr. Brady, who ferociously pumped his hands on Owen as he attempted CPR.
“Charge the paddles!” shouted Dr. Forrest. Dr. Brady stopped pumping Owen’s chest and quickly peeled back his blankets to open up his hospital gown. His chest had been shaved, and strategically placed electrodes affixed to the electrocardiogram device were visible.
Ruiz handed the paddles to Dr. Forrest and then yelled, “Charged, two hundred!”
“Clear!” said Dr. Forrest, and the medical team immediately reacted by standing away from Owen. He placed the paddles and deployed the device.
Owen’s body lurched upward as the strong electrical current passed through his heart’s muscle cells, momentarily stopping the abnormal electrical energy and encouraging the normal heart beat to resume.
Everyone held their breath and studied the heart rate monitor. The horizontal line remained unchanged following the first attempt.
Dr. Forrest was not giving up. “Charge again!”
“Charged!”
“Clear!”
He tried again. Once again, the jolt of electric current forced Owen upwards, but as before, the monitor told the story. There was no response.
Dr. Brady frantically resumed chest compressions while Ruiz continued to manually force air into Owen’s lungs. It had been almost six minutes. Generally, at least fifty to sixty percent of sudden cardiac arrest patients survive if defibrillation procedures take place within five minutes. On this day, the odds were not in Owen’s favor.
Dr. Brady and Ruiz continued to fight for a miracle. He pushed on Owen’s chest, his eyes darting to Lacey, who was wailing in grief over her husband, his patient that he tried to do everything to save.
“Push epi! Again!” His voice begged as he gave the directive. In his mind, he knew it was hopeless.
“Frank,” said Dr. Forrest, who made eye contact with his colleague. All he had to do was slowly shake his head side to side. It was over.
Dr. Brady stepped back from Owen’s bed and angrily ripped his gloves off and slammed them to the floor. “Time of death, 9:34.”
The entire medical team looked down at Owen’s dead body, tears rolling down their cheeks. One by one, they stopped to offer their condolences to Lacey and Tucker, who held each other as they wailed in agony. Finally, Dr. Brady apologized for not saving Owen and left them alone. For nearly an hour, they sobbed at his bedside. Hugging him. Squeezing his hand. Imploring God to make this nightmare end. Begging Him to bring back a loving husband and father who didn’t deserve to die.
PART IV
Day seventeen, Sunday, November 3
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sunday, November 3
Hickory, North Carolina
The next day, Peter woke up to the smell of bacon sizzling in a cast-iron skillet. The warmth from the wood-burning stove heated the Spencers’ home while the top burners provided a cooktop to prepare warm meals. Peter said good morning to Anna and Charles before scampering outside to an outhouse that hadn’t been used by the family for nearly eighty years. It had been placed back into service when the power went out permanently.
It was colder than the day before, and Peter shivered as he tried to urinate. He was anxious to get into town to learn more about these Uber trips, as Charles called them. He wasn’t sure what he could trade, but he would try to gain a seat on one of the trucks heading south.
During their breakfast together, Peter was elated to learn that Charles was going to drive him into town and introduce him to a fellow truck driver he was loosely acquainted with. He thought an introduction would go a long way to gaining a ride.
The two men went alone so Anna could keep an eye on the house. She and Peter shed a few tears as they said their goodbyes. He was in awe at the woman’s fortitude and ability to keep her spirits up. Her husband had serious lung issues that required medical attention that was no longer available. His eventual death would likely be slow and painful.
They entered the Hickory Farmers Market, which was normally held at Union Square on Saturdays. Prior to the attacks, it had been so popular that the organizers had maintained a website complete with a calendar letting attendees know what vegetables they could expect to buy during what period of the year.
The town square was filled with pop-up shops, built in the morning and removed at night. Before the bombs fell, this had been a bustling public market filled with playing children, colorful flags and balloons, and customers who drove up from Charlotte to enjoy the ambience.
The mood was far different that morning. A single entrance forced people to file past the leery eyes of the market’s organizers. To enter, you had to show residency or be accompanied by a resident. Peter would’ve never been granted access without Charles alongside. There were no children present. In the early days after the market began operating again, hungry kids would steal a handful of produce from the farmers. Rather than punish them, the organizers forbade them from being there.