There was a moment of stunned, horrified silence. Of comprehension.
Brannigan came back all business in an attempt to stay calm, to keep everyone focused. "What about the vic?"
Sean stared down to the rocks below. At the blood seeping everywhere. At the still body crumpled practically at the feet of the second rescuer who stared back at him with horror on his face.
"Say again. What about the vic?"
Sean swallowed the fear in his throat and forced his gaze-- and his mind--away from the broken body below. "Victim is still there. Stokes is swinging. Move left."
"Hang on. I'm stopping the swing."
Automatically the rescue crew gripped whatever was closest as Brannigan maneuvered quickly over the victim in mid-swing.
"Stokes is stable," Sean reported.
"Do I put the victim down?"
Sean took a deep breath. "No, let's just move him over to the clearing."
Doug broke radio silence. "Rescuer one is in bad shape. He's bad."
"Do what you can, rescue two," Brannigan said. "We'll be right back. Command, are you getting all this? We need a firefighter to disconnect our victim for us. We'll need another stokes and another med helicopter. Ben, how far out are you?"
"Ten minutes."
"Ground crew standing by. Will D.C. vic in clearing."
No one looked at Sam. He sat in silence, his face grim, shock and horror in his eyes. No one spoke as they waited for the victim to be disconnected so they could get back to their fallen crew member.
3
"THAT'S my last patient, Evelyn," Libby told the nurse with a faint smile. "It's home for me."
"Did you hear all the commotion in the ER, doctor?" Evelyn asked.
"I heard two helicopters arrive," Libby replied, "but I was too busy to check out what was going on." Two helicopters were unusual, so she'd guessed there was an accident on the highway.
"I've only managed to hear a word here and there, but it sounds like Drew Madison was climbing the cliffs out by Sea Lion Cove and fell. They called in the rescue helicopter and something went wrong."
Libby drew in her breath. "Drew? Are you certain? What on earth would he be doing out in this kind of weather? And what would he be doing on the cliffs? He knows how dangerous they are." The cliffs were extremely hazardous, fractured by huge cracks, weakened by the ever-eroding sea, rock crumbling away without warning. Even without the signs posted up and down the coastline, all the locals knew better than to risk their lives climbing the treacherous, unstable rock faces. "How bad is he hurt, do you know?"
"Orthopedic is with him now. You'll have to check with the ER docs, Libby. We've been so busy here in surgery today I haven't had a chance to really hear much."
"Thanks Evelyn. I'll go see him on my way out."
Libby tossed her gloves into a trash can and lifted a hand as she hurried down the hall toward the ER. She had known Drew his entire life. He wasn't a kid who did stupid things. He'd grown up in the small town of Sea Haven and he certainly knew the hazards of the crumbling cliffs due to the continual pounding of the sea and natural erosion. It made no sense to her that Drew would be out in the rain on a dangerous cliff when he had worked so hard to keep his leukemia in remission.
The ER was bustling with more than usual activity. The moment she set foot in the emergency room, she felt her body respond to the call for healing. Her stomach lurched and her temples began to throb. Somebody was in bad shape. Normally she didn't feel the call to heal so urgently, but this time every cell in her body began to crackle with energy. Her palms grew warm.
One of the ER nurses was Linda Bowers, a friend from high school. "What's going on?" Libby asked briskly.
"Helicopter rescue," Linda answered, "off the cliffs of Sea Lion Cove."
"The weather's horrible with the wind and rain. I heard it was Drew Madison. I can't imagine what he was thinking messing around out there. Everyone knows how dangerous it is."
"Jonas and Jackson have been in with Drew and from the small bits of conversation I'm hearing, they aren't so certain it was an accident. Pete Granger spotted him after Drew had apparently fallen or slid or maybe climbed halfway down the cliff. Then he fell the rest of the way onto the rocks."
"How bad is he injured?"
"No brain injuries, but surgery on his legs for certain. Ortho is looking at him. He's refusing to talk to his mother. He doesn't want to see her and she's totally hysterical. We even offered her a sedative." Linda frowned. "I think you should know, she's blaming you and your sisters."
"What? How could we be responsible for Drew going out onto the cliffs? Kate owns the property, but the cliffs are clearly marked unsafe and there's a fence surrounding the bluff with warning signs posted everywhere. She can't blame Kate--or us for that matter."
"Apparently she asked you to cure Drew."
Libby pressed her hand to her stomach. The need to act was becoming far more urgent. Someone was in dire straights and it wasn't Drew with his need for surgery. She felt the pull toward her left and even took a step in that direction before she could stop herself. "I can't cure Drew. I told her that. My sisters went with me and we worked on him to buy him more time in the hopes that research will be more aggressive."
Libby worked at staying focused on the conversation. It was important to her, but the continual draw toward the room to the left was strong. She could see through the glass partition someone hooked up to machines. Whoever the patient was, his life was ebbing away.
"Irene thinks Drew tried to commit suicide."
That caught Libby's attention. "That's just not possible. He's battled leukemia for years. He's always been determined to live."
"She put him in an experimental program with some new drug with the hopes of a complete cure. She blames the drug as well, says a side effect is depression."
That caught Libby's attention. "Not PDG-ibenregen?"
Linda nodded. "That's the drug. Why? What have you heard?"
"I warned Irene to be careful of that drug. Drew fell into the age group where preliminary reports showed problems with depression. I didn't think the drug was ready for human trials and I told her as much." Libby rubbed her pounding temples, trying to resist the pull toward the patient in the next room. "Why in the world didn't she listen to me? She asked me about it and I've done a lot of research on it. I was interested because the drug was based on the original work of someone I went to school with, but in the first phase of clinicals, there were two teens with problems and that raised a red flag to me. You might remember the original researcher, Tyson Derrick; he actually lives here on and off with his cousin, Sam Chapman. A few years ago he received a Nobel Prize in medicine for his studies in wound-healing cellular regeneration."
"Well, he won't be winning any more Nobel Prizes for anything. He was the rescuer that went down the rope. His safety harness failed and he fell. Major head trauma, internal injuries. The scans are bad. They're sending him to San Francisco, but I doubt he'll live through the night."
Libby sucked in her breath and pressed her hand to her suddenly churning stomach. "Tyson was the rescuer?" She turned her head toward the glass partition, trying to see the face of the patient. "Are you certain? He's a biochemist. A renowned researcher. He's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Jonas mentioned only last night that Ty worked for the forestry, but I didn't think . . ." Her voice drifted off.
"His parents died a couple of years ago and left him more money than everyone in Sea Haven has put together. Sam will most likely inherit everything. This must be awful for him. They're very close and Tyson's his only relative."
"That's why he worked with the forestry. Sam's a firefighter." Libby couldn't pull her gaze away from the glass. "I can't believe this happened. Who worked on Ty?"
"I'm sorry, Libby, I can see you're upset, but Dr. Shayner did a thorough workup on the patient. Tyson was intubated immediately and the doctor ordered a CT scan as well as a head and spinal scan. His pupils were blown and his corneal and
gag reflexes as well as ocular movement were all unresponsive. He's comatose."
"I want to see the scans."
Linda led the way into the room without comment. "Dr. Shayner is arranging to fly him to San Francisco. He's consulting with neurological."
Libby's heart dropped as she studied the scan. "The mortality rate for diffuse anoxal injuries is high," she murmured aloud, her frown deepening. The brain had been jarred too hard with the fall, causing the anoxals to tear. "The only method for treating is stabilizing. He has both subdural and dural hematomas." Libby continued to talk to herself.
Tyson was bleeding both on the brain and underneath. The brain was swelling. Libby closed her eyes briefly. She couldn't look at him. She had to leave while she could. Walk out the door and not look back. Her legs felt rubbery. Her body swayed slightly and she steadied herself with one hand against the wall, leaning forward to take deep breaths.
"Libby, are you okay?" Linda put her hand on Libby's back to stabilize her. With a little cry she lifted her palm to her mouth. "You're burning up, Lib." Her fingers felt scalded and sore.
There was no getting around it. Libby couldn't leave Tyson, not with his brilliance, his incredible brain so capable of doing so much good. She couldn't walk out. She heard Linda as if at a great distance, words buzzing in her head, but she couldn't focus. Libby pushed off the wall and found her body moving automatically toward the room where Tyson Derrick lay close to death.
No! Libby, get out of there. It's too dangerous.