Angels in the ER (8 page)

“I’d like to be over in that bed,” she instructed Lori, pointing to the back right corner of the room—bed C. “And make sure that the curtains are drawn.”

Lori dutifully helped Mrs. Booth onto the stretcher, raised the head to a comfortable level, and gave her a blanket straight from the warmer.

“Your nurse will be with you in a moment to start your IV,” she told her. “I’ll need to go back out to triage now.”

“That will be fine, Lori. And make sure you tell her not to dawdle.”

Lori walked out of the room and over to the nurses’ station.

“Who’s got OBS today?” she asked, glancing at the assignment board.

Virginia Granger was sitting at the nurses’ station, working on one of her administrative reports. “Becka’s got it, Lori, but she’s on break right now. Give me the chart and I’ll get things started. I know Mrs. Booth.”

Amy handed her the chart and headed back to triage.

Becka Hemby was twenty-two years old and a recent graduate from the local nursing program. She had been in the ER for only about a month. Though she had the potential to be a good ER nurse, she was still learning the ropes.

Within a few minutes, Virginia had Betty’s IV started and had ordered her medication from the pharmacy. It would be delivered shortly. Mrs. Booth was reclining comfortably, reading her
Southern Living
magazine behind her closed curtains. Everything seemed to be on schedule.

And then things turned south. It seems to happen that way, doesn’t it? Just when everything seems under control, rolling along smoothly, there’s a sudden bump in the road—and then a pothole.

The bump in the road came in the form of our young nurse, Miss Hemby. She had come back from her break and gone out to relieve Lori in triage. All routine. Lori would be back in fifteen minutes and Becka would resume her regular assignment, which included the observation room. It was those fifteen minutes that would prove to be crucial. That’s when the pothole arrived, in the person of Jasper Little.

Jasper was one of our regulars. He had a predilection for MD
20/20 and would frequently consume it to the point of oblivion. This was an unusual time of day for him to appear in the department. His blood alcohol level usually didn’t reach the customary .40 range until later in the evening. But someone had given him ten dollars to help with an odd job and he had headed straight to his favorite store.

Becka greeted Mr. Little and took him into triage. There she obtained his vital signs and tried to make some sense out of what he was saying. He could barely walk, and he seemed to be speaking something other than English. She made a wise decision to place him in a wheelchair and rolled him into the department. She rightly assumed Jasper would need some fluids and medications, and she glanced at the board at the nurses’ station to determine the most appropriate room. In her brief time with us, she had helped take care of him during one of his bouts with the DTs.

Hmm,
she thought.
OBS has only one patient, Jasper’ll probably be with us for a while, so I’ll take him there.

She rolled Jasper into OBS and over to the stretcher of bed B, in the back left corner of the room. Mrs. Booth was contentedly reading behind her curtain, unaware of her new roommate.

Just then, Lori came back from her break. She stuck her head in OBS and told Becka she was headed out to triage, and she took Jasper’s wheelchair with her. She didn’t look up to see the identity of the new patient.

Becka busied herself with Mr. Little. It was no small task to get him up on the stretcher and secure him behind the raised rails. She knew department policy and got him undressed to his underwear and into a hospital gown.

“You stay right here, Mr. Little,” she instructed him. “I’ll be right back.”

He mumbled a response that was completely unintelligible and then lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.

I happened to be the one who picked up Jasper’s chart when it hit the counter. I assumed that this would be a routine visit: IV fluids, multivitamins and thiamine through his IV line, and observation for
several hours. We would get a blood alcohol on him and put together a pool to see who could come the closest without going over. Briefly, the thought crossed my mind that he probably shouldn’t be in OBS with Mrs. Booth. She considered it her private domain, and she certainly didn’t travel in the same circles as Jasper Little. Nevertheless, he was already bedded down, and what was the worst that could happen?

We found out in about an hour. Becka had checked on Mrs. Booth and made sure she was comfortable. Her medication was infusing smoothly and she should be ready to go home in thirty minutes or so. Becka then stepped across to Jasper’s stretcher.

“Mr. Little,” she said, gently shaking his shoulder. “How are you doing?”

He raised his head off the pillow and half opened his eyes. “Gotta pee,” he declared.

“Excuse me?” Becka asked.

“Gotta pee,” he repeated. His head fell back on the pillow and his eyes again closed.

She looked at his IV line. It was running wide open and he had already received almost two liters of fluids.
He probably does have to urinate,
she thought.

She glanced at the counter behind the stretcher and didn’t see a urinal or bedpan. She was concerned that Jasper was still too unsteady on his feet to get him up and walk him to the bathroom.

“I understand, Mr. Little,” she told him. “I’m going to step out for just a second and get a urinal for you. I’ll be right back.”

“Gotta pee,” he mumbled.

I was at the nurses’ station when Becka came out of OBS and headed for the supply closet. She was in there for several minutes before sticking her head out and asking, “Does anyone know where the urinals are kept?”

Before anyone could respond, there came a loud shriek from OBS. It was Mrs. Booth. “Oh, good Lord! Somebody help me!”

Becka bolted out of the supply closet and headed for OBS. I put down the chart I was holding and followed her.

“Somebody help! Do something!”

When I reached the doorway, Becka was pulling aside Mrs. Booth’s curtain and asking, “Mrs. Booth, what’s the…”

She stopped in mid-sentence and just stared.

Betty Booth sat bolt upright in her bed, her hands covering her mouth and her eyes wide as saucers. Then with one hand she pointed to the foot of her bed.

There in all his glory stood Jasper Little. He had somehow gotten out of his stretcher and walked across the room, IV pole in tow. Becka had put his gown on backward, so the opening was in the front. He stood at the foot of Mrs. Booth’s bed with his hands on his hips, eyes closed, and pelvis thrust forward. He was relieving himself on the end of her stretcher, and he was doing so with unrestrained enthusiasm.

“Gotta pee,” he mumbled, smiling and nodding his head.

Becka quickly pulled the curtain closed and led Jasper back to his bed. Mrs. Booth remained speechless, shaken to the core. The next day, her physician arranged for another facility to administer her medication. We haven’t seen her since.

10:15 p.m.
Two police officers escorted a middle-aged man into the department.

“Good evenin’, Doc,” one of them greeted me as they approached the nurses’ station. “Got some business for you.”

I glanced up and nodded hello, barely noticing the man between them. He was handcuffed, his hair tousled and his shirt partway out of his pants. I glanced down at his feet and noticed he wore only one shoe. Then I looked at his face again and realized he looked familiar. My index finger went to my chin and my head cocked to one side as I struggled for his name.

Then it came to me. The look of recognition on my face must have been obvious, because the officer who had spoken nodded his head and said, “Yep, got a VIP for you here.”

The shackled visitor didn’t seem to hear this. I’m not sure he was hearing much of anything. He reeked of alcohol, and his slouching posture and lolling head indicated he had passed way beyond being “under the influence.”

Jeff Ryan had walked up to the counter. “Go ahead and take him back to ortho,” he instructed the officers. “There’s no one in there and he should be out of the way.”

“Sure thing,” they responded and headed down the hallway. They knew their way around the department as well as we did.

When they were a safe distance away, Jeff said, “Now isn’t that somethin’?”

“Isn’t that Joe Sightler?” I asked. “The mayor of Hazelton?” This was a small town about twenty minutes outside of Rock Hill. He was a high-profile local politician, frequently in the news, and never one to shy away from controversial issues.

“That’s Joe alright,” Jeff answered. “Looks like he’s in a bit of a pickle tonight.”

“Or at least pickled,” Amy punned from behind the desk. “He can barely stand.”

This should be interesting,
I thought. I had some other work to do, and it would take a while for his chart to make its way to the counter. Still, it was going to be interesting.

Every emergency department has had its share of VIP patients. We’ve had movie actors, professional football players, politicians, and professional wrestlers. Even famous biblical characters—I once took care of a man who claimed to be John the Baptist. They all get treated the same and are shown no favoritism, nor do they receive any special perks. (We did keep a close eye on John, though. He was a little different.) The fact is, we all put our pants on one leg at a time. We all have the same weaknesses and maladies, the same needs and the same quandaries. Joe Sightler might be a well-known politician, but in this ER on this night, he was just a man in need of medical attention. I wasn’t exactly sure what that attention was going to be, but it didn’t look like it would be anything serious. He would be in line just like everyone else.

I picked up his chart from the countertop just as one of his police officers walked up.

“Mr. Sightler was involved in a fender bender,” he told me. “Actually, I’m not sure it even qualifies as a fender bender. He was at a local restaurant this evening and had a few too many to drink. We were stopped at a red light right beside the restaurant when he came out and got in his car. We sat through the next green light and just watched, ’cause we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. He barely made it across the parking lot without falling. We thought,
No way is this guy gonna try to drive!
”

The officer stopped and shook his head, still unable to believe what had happened. Then he continued. “We pulled into the lot and tried to stop him, but before we could, he gunned the motor and backed right into a light post. I guess he couldn’t see the post, ’cause he kept rammin’ into it. Hit it a couple of times. I had to reach in and cut off the motor.”

When he paused this time, I glanced down at Joe’s chart and searched for “chief complaint.” The business office had typed in, “Auto accident. No complaints. Police request blood alcohol.”

“Let me go check him out,” I told the officer. “And we’ll get you guys out of here as quickly as we can.”

“No hurry, Doc. Our shift’s almost over. We’ll take Joe down to the station, and it looks like he’ll be spending at least tonight with us. I guess we’ll be in the paper in the morning.”

“Probably so,” I agreed.

After checking Joe out and determining he had no significant physical injury, we awaited his blood alcohol. He had agreed to have it drawn, having slurred, “I don’t have anything to hide.”

My guess was it was going to be north of .40.

This wasn’t the first time, unfortunately, we had taken care of the mayor in an inebriated condition. You’d think he would have practiced some discretion with his use of alcohol, but he seemed oblivious to the potential repercussions. Or maybe he assumed he was above any public reprimand or ballyhoo.

As I walked back up the hall, a momentary lull in our overhead music caught my attention. Our automatic CD changer was located in the doctor’s office and we were able to select the music in the ER. Within a few seconds, sounds from Motown drifted through the department. I recognized the voices of the Temptations as they began “My Girl.”

Standing at the nurses’ station, I was handed a lab slip from the fax. It revealed Joe Sightler’s blood alcohol: .465, more than four times the legal limit.

“That should about do it,” the officer remarked, looking over my shoulder.