Getting Real (Getting Some 3)

But she’s not.

He tilts her head back to open her airway and pinches her nose, covering her mouth with his and delivering two steady rescue breaths. Then he checks for respiration and a pulse again.

He lifts up. “No pulse, no respiration—starting compressions.”

His voice is robotic, the same tone he uses in the trauma room. It’s why repetition is an essential part of medical training—we have to go through the steps automatically. There’s no time for thinking or feeling when seconds make the difference between life and death.

Connor folds his hands on the little girl’s chest and pushes down with straight arms—pumping her heart for her. The CPR ratio for a child is fifteen compressions to two breaths when multiple rescuers are present. I move to her other side, down on my knees to take over the rescue breathing. Because in real life, CPR isn’t like in the movies. It’s hard work, taxing, and we have to work together if we’re going to last.

As we start the second cycle of compressions, a woman yells in the distance and races up to us.

“Oh my god, what happened?”

From the horror on her face and the terror in her voice, I assume she’s the girls’ mother. She has a canvas bag in her hands that she drops on the ground as she crouches beside the teenager near us, wrapping an arm around her shaking shoulders.

They were probably having a lovely day, down at the lake—a picnic and a swim that would tire the little one out before bedtime. The mother probably went to the car to get forgotten towels, maybe a snack—just a quick trip. It should’ve been fine. Everything should’ve been all right. And now she’s here and her whole world hangs on a razor’s edge.

Life is a bastard sometimes.

“She slipped out of her tube,” the teenager sobs. “I didn’t see her—I’m so sorry, Mom.”

The mother covers her mouth with her hand, watching Connor and me work.

“Is she . . . is she gonna be okay?”

“An ambulance is on the way,” I tell her in a level voice. “I’m a nurse and this is Dr. Daniels. We’re doing everything we can to help Serena.”

Because that’s all the assurance I can give.

We keep going. Mechanically repeating the movements. A police officer arrives on the scene—not Connor’s brother—but since he doesn’t have a defibrillator and we’re already performing CPR, there’s not much for him to do but watch.

After the second round of five cycles, I tell Connor, “Hold compressions.”

And I lean down to check for a response.

When I lift up seconds later, I meet his gaze.

“Nothing.”

“Fuck!”

Frustration slices in his voice and burns in his eyes. Because despite all of Connor’s knowledge, without the proper equipment and medicine, his options are limited. Restrained.

Like Superman without his powers—he’s just human now—like the rest of us.

“Resuming compressions,” he snaps, and begins a new cycle.

“Do you need to switch?” I ask.

“No. How long?”

He’s asking me how long she’s been down. I glance at his phone on the ground beside me.

“Five minutes.”

He bites back another curse.

“What’s EMS’s ETA?”

“911 said seven minutes.”

He nods sharply, focusing his attention on the little girl in front of him.

And then he whispers quiet and low and in time with the compressions.

“Come on, baby. Come on.”

I don’t know if he’s praying or begging or willing the life back into her—I’m not sure if he even realizes he’s speaking.

“Come back, baby, come back. Come on, come on, come on . . . “

When you work in the emergency department, death is a part of your job. That’s just how it is. It becomes a part of your day, a part of your life. Sometimes you don’t even feel it—there’s no shock or sadness—when it’s predictable or expected.

And sometimes, even when you know it’s inevitable, it’s devastating. It brings you to your knees.

“Come on, baby, come back.”

And I know right then, if we lose her—if he loses her, because that’s how he’ll see it—it will stay with Connor forever. He won’t show it, will probably never talk about it . . . but it’ll be there.

This one will hurt him.

“Come back, come on, baby, come back . . . ”

And like the snap of the universe’s fingers, like the flip of a switch—it can happen like that—Serena comes back.

Water sputters from her mouth and she shudders hard with coughing. And then crying.

And crying is amazing. The best sound in the whole world.

Because it means she’s breathing.

“There you go.” Connor croons, gentle with relief. “That’s it, sweetheart.”

Our hands cover each other’s at her back, lifting her slightly to help clear the fluid from her lungs and turning her to her side. “Okay, that’s it. You’re okay. You’re okay now . . .”

The sounds of an ambulance siren pierces the air as Serena’s mother moves closer, reaching for her crying child.