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They quickly push me back out of the way while one begins chest compressions and the other disconnects the tube attached to the ventilator. They connect a bag to it like they had in the ambulance waiting for the life-flight to arrive and begin pumping careful, long breathes into it every three-to-five seconds.
After two minutes, they check his pulse. Nothing.
They trade positions, their movements precise, and continue with the chest compressions. Very little’s said between the two paramedics assisting him. I try to judge their faces, an indication of the outcome but get nothing. They’re focused, and while I appreciate it, it does nothing for my nerves.
“It can’t end this way,” I cry. “It just fucking can’t!” We’d been separated for too long for the selfishness of a select few to take away what we had.
They can’t win.
I hear voices, the radio in the flight crackling to life, “Inbound, twenty-one-year-old male, severe head injury. Working code in progress, successfully intubated prior to arrest, GCS 3, ETA eight minutes.”
I have no idea what any of that means, other than they need to hurry the fuck up. All I can focus on is the way he looks lyingthere. Lifeless. A machine and two paramedics keeping him alive.
They airlift us to a trauma center in Birmingham and the second we land, it’s a swarm of doctors around the helicopter, all waiting for Grayson. He’s not moving, a man beside him holding up an IV, another doing chest compressions and one squeezing the bag attached to his mouth.
I hear the paramedic yelling to the doctors as they push him away from me, “Code in progress. Twenty-one-year-old male, blunt force trauma to the left temple with a baseball bat. Roughly ninety minutes from injury onset. GCS at scene, 7. Girlfriend says he was able to say her name and move immediately after. Slurred speech with responding to pain, vomiting. Intubated and started IV on scene. HR 132 on scene, BP was 190/82, O2 sat prior to intubation was 86%, RR 40-50’s initially, dropped to teens prior to intubating. Working progress for fifteen minutes, initial rhythm PEA. CPR immediately and has received four doses of Epi total. Two units packed RBC’s, one liter of LR IV bolus. Left AC 20-gauge PIV, right AC 16-gauge PIV. Gave him Fentanyl 150 mcg. Time’s two. RSI meds: Roc and Ketamine.”
As they rattle off his condition and everything they did to keep him alive, I think how’d this happen? How’d we go from being at the lake this morning to at a trauma center? Nausea roots inside me and I fight the urge to vomit. It rolls through in waves, taking turns with anger, fear, shock.
“Where are you taking him?” I ask as they lay me on a gurney, two women standing next to me, my view of Grayson disappearing, a team of doctors rushing him across the roof top.
“He’s getting the best possible care,” a nurse tells me, handing me a blanket.
“Please,” I beg. “Don’t let him die! He can’t die!”
“Sweetie, breathe.” The one beside me rubs my back, her face inches from mine. “Just breathe.” She soothes, her handsrunning continuously over my back. “You need to take care of you, and we take care of him.”
I heave for a breath, strangled gasps leaving my lips. Gripping the edge of the gurney, I try so hard to pull myself together, but I can’t.
I want to die with him.
49
EVIE
Istare at the white and gray walls of the room. They’re quiet, still, their starkness blinding. Between my own fuzzy and disoriented moments, I ask a thousand times about Grayson, but I’m given nothing. They don’t know. They do tell me he’s in surgery with a subarachnoid hemorrhage and multiple dural contusions.
I ask if he’s going to make it, and I’m met with a very solemn faces from the trauma nurses and the words, “It’s a fifty-fifty chance. We got a pulse back and into surgery. We don’t know how extensive the bleed is yet.”
I tell myself surgery is good. Surgery means, still alive.
They admit me, start antibiotics, clean up my cuts, splint my hand, and I’m given a rape test.
My mom and Julia are the first to make it to the hospital, having been only an hour away in Montgomery. I don’t think I called anyone since I’ve been here, but I don’t remember much about the last few hours, my body drifting in and out of a conscious state.
The second my mom walks into my room, she’s in my bed holding me. No questions, no what happened, or how could youlet a man beat you. Nothing. Just unconditional love of a mother who doesn’t care about anything but that I’m breathing.
I can’t say the same for Julia who hovers near the door, tears filling her eyes.
I make eye contact with Julia. “Have you heard anything?” I ask, my face pressed against my mom’s chest. “Is he out of surgery?”
Bringing a waded-up tissue to her eyes, a sob escapes her as she moves from the door to beside me in the bed. “He’s still in surgery from what they can tell me, honey.”
I draw in a strangled breath, relieved on some levels, yet devastated on so many more. “I’m so sorry,” I cry, burying my face in my hands, my IV catching on the blanket.
Mom untangles it for me, holding tighter. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“Yes! Yes, I do! I didn’t protect him. I led Shane to him.”