I push my way through the endless double doors, working my way towards A&E and the closest exit. It’s Saturday night, so I’m not surprised when I find a mess of rushed doctors, stressed nurses, and many patients in the wards, most of them drunk. Holding my bag on my shoulder, I weave through the scatterings of people, peeking in the bays as I go. Drunk. Drunk. Vomiting. Drunk.
I pass the reception area, where a huddle of people are waiting to be seen, checked in, or given information, and break through the doors into the cold evening air. Despite the no-smoking policy on the hospital grounds, there are dozens of people puffing away just outside the door, rather than walking the twenty metres that will technically take them off the property. I cough my way through the plumes of nicotine-infested air, my nose wrinkling, and cut across the walkway towards the main street.
I pick up my pace, but notice some paramedics up ahead offloading a bed from their ambulance, looking urgent and rushed. I slow my stride to let them pass. The drunken man tailing me, however, doesn’t, and staggers right in front of the bed, causing the wheels to catch his ankles and knock him to his arse, as well as jar the bed to a halt. My hand covers my mouth, and the paramedics start shouting their annoyance at the drunken idiot for hindering them. The paramedic leading the bed is doing so with one hand, his other holding up a drip. His face flames red. ‘Move, you fool,’ he yells, trying to get the bed around the squirming body of the drunk on the ground.
I rush over to get the inebriated idiot out of their way. ‘Sir, you need to get up,’ I say, hooking my arms under his armpits and straining to lift his deadweight. My nose is invaded with the putrid stench of stale alcohol and weeks’ worth of bad personal hygiene. ‘He won’t budge,’ I huff, losing my hold. He falls back to the ground like a sack of potatoes, rolling and flailing around. I look to the paramedics, the unconscious patient on the bed catching my eye.
Time stops.
My heart stops.
The world stops spinning.
I stagger back and my body slams into the wall behind me, my lungs exploding from the impact. ‘Theo,’ I whisper, my shocked eyes trying to fathom the picture of the broken man before me. Blood. There’s blood everywhere. ‘Oh my God,’ I breathe, my body caught between taking me to him and keeping far, far back, frightened to get closer and see the full extent of the unsightliness – his skin sallow and grey, his cheeks gaunt, and his stubble now a beard. I hardly recognize him.
Instinct takes over, and I run to the bed.
‘Miss, please.’ The paramedic intervenes, pulling me away. ‘Do you know him? Can you tell us his name?’
‘He’s my boyfriend,’ I choke, scanning his face for any sign of life. There’s none. He’s motionless. Looks dead. ‘His name is Theo. Theo Kane.’ I shrug off the paramedic and shoot forward, looking Theo up and down, seeing his chest naked beneath the thin blankets. More blood. ‘What’s happened to him?’ My heart breaks in two, the sight of my big, strong man so utterly broken putting too much strain on the crack that’s caused me agony since he left.
The two paramedics negotiate the bed around the drunken man, leaving him on the ground. ‘He was found by the docks. Unconscious, unresponsive, low pulse rate. He’s not in a good way, darling.’
They burst through the doors of the emergency care unit, and a flood of nurses hurry towards us, obviously awaiting Theo’s arrival. The paramedic sends one out to the drunken man, and I barely stop myself from shouting my outrage. Theo needs every nurse he can get. They begin work on him immediately as the paramedics carry on wheeling him down the corridor, reeling off everything from his name to his blood pressure, from where they found him to his injuries.
I’m in a daze of nothingness, running alongside the bed, listening and watching the madness unfold. I hear the word critical. I hear them tell the nurses that he has a suspected punctured lung resulting from broken ribs. But what’s holding most of my attention is the sudden sight of Theo’s body jerking. It appears to be in spasm, constantly twitching on the bed. Yet when I look to his face, nothing.
All my nursing instincts go out the window. I’m not calm, I’m not collected, and I’m not thinking straight. If these medical professionals weren’t here, I wouldn’t know what to do. My heart is beating so fast it’s a vibration in my chest, my ears pounding with the pressure of blood pumping around my body.
Theo’s wheeled into a cubicle and I’m stopped at the threshold, the nurse pushing me back a little to leave room for the many people working on him. It takes everything in me to obey. To give them space and not lunge forward and seize Theo in my arms. Watching as a nurse tries to insert a cannula into his arm pains me. His twitching body keeps knocking her off target, and she repeatedly stabs at his flesh, never hitting the vein she needs.