by Barbara Ebel
It was, however, mind boggling to think that his preferred method of hanging meant he needed to make a choice between three basic methods. Before last night, he knew nothing of such a morbid subject. Now he knew about the three basic types of hanging oneself: the short, standard, or long method.
For once, Jessy wished he was not six-foot three. Being so tall could be too much of a hindrance for him to commit suicide via the “long” drop, or a lengthy drop which is long. Apparently, it was the most humane way to hang because irreversible spine damage and death occurred instantaneously. That is, if the person did not end up decapitated first. Besides the difficulty of his long frame, he didn’t want to be left in two pieces.
Another type of hanging was called the “short” drop and that made little sense to even call it a hanging. If the drop was barely a foot long, body weight and gravity would do most of the heavy lifting for suffocation and a person could have the life squeezed out of them for up to a half hour. “No thank you, Mr. Hangman,” Jessy quipped quietly into his hands.
That left Jessy only one option. If the execution of the method went without a hitch, so to speak, then the “standard” drop was for him. With a perfect attempt, the base of his neck should snap clean as a whistle, he should go unconscious, and die.
He took a deep sigh and wiped a tear away from one eye. He stood and removed his white doctor’s coat. The jacket, symbolic of everything he had worked for, he cast to the side.
Jessy’s hands yanked the coverlet off the bed, and he heaped it on the floor. Next, he yanked the top sheet away from the fitted sheet and twisted it lengthwise into a rope-like spiral.
He intently focused. No way would he change his mind. With the weight of his body, he pushed the twin bed out of the way, and then dragged the wooden chair out from the desk. Up above, a ceiling fan circled on low. It was the hospital’s way of saving on what little air conditioning was needed in the call rooms in the warmer months.
Jessy was no engineer or builder. All he could hope for was that the damn fan mounted on the ceiling would hold his weight … for the “standard” drop.
He pitched the sheet up, but needed to stand on the chair to grab the other end and tie a knot around the downrod. Happy with the result, he cinched it as tight as possible.
Jessy continued to stay in the same spot. One more wave of thinking fluttered over him. What would it be like … what he was getting ready to do? He couldn’t answer that question and anyone else who’d succeeded in hanging themselves would be too dead or too mentally incapacitated to answer that question as well.
He tied the other end of the sheet tightly around his neck. Now he needed to be super fast. No turning back and no looking forward into an empty life. He kicked a leg behind him.
The wooden chair banged on the floor.
The vision of his white lab coat concentrated on his retina as he struggled and thrashed after the drop.
CHAPTER 17
Viktoria leaned into the OB nurses’ station and questioned the two women at the desk. What exactly had they done to reach Dr. Winters?
“Texted and called his cell phone,” one of them responded. “Which is what he prefers. Thank goodness you stepped up to the task of delivering that baby.”
Viktoria grabbed the landline phone and dialed the operator. “Please overhead page Dr. Winters to the obstetric ward.” She replaced the phone and all three women exchanged glances as the announcement came over the public address system.
Ten minutes later, he still didn’t show, and with no call from him to the desk, Viktoria grimaced. “I’ll go scout out the call rooms. I need to go up there anyway to claim one for tonight, for myself.”
“Dr. Thorsdottir,” one of them said, “he’s a squatter in room number seven. We all remember that because the number on the door is not bringing him any luck at all.”
“I see. Well, perhaps he’s dead to the world taking a deep nap.”
“More power to him, but that doesn’t excuse him from taking care of his patients.”
Viktoria nodded. She stopped in the anesthesia office first to grab her overnight bag and then jumped on the elevator. Upstairs, she padded to the left and stopped at room three. When she popped her head inside, it appeared to be an unused room, so she set her bag on the coverlet.
Viktoria found a key on the desktop and slipped it into her jacket. She locked the room door, stepped over to lucky room seven, and rapped on the outside. With no answer after a few more knocks, she leaned closer and spoke louder.
“Dr. Winter? Dr. Thorsdottir here. They really need you on the obstetrics ward. We delivered a baby.”
She glanced up and down the hallway. Hopefully, no other doctors were nearby whom she may be disturbing. “Dr. Winter, are you in there?”
With no response, the only explanation she could think of was that the obstetrician had left the hospital. But not taking his calls and ignoring them was downright inexcusable.
Although she figured the door would be locked, she took a chance at trying the door knob. It opened with a turn.
“Dr. Winter?” she asked, inching her head in. At least the room had dim artificial light, so she figured he must be there or had been there recently.
She opened the door wider. He wasn’t inside and, looking straight towards the bed, it took a second to process that the bed had been moved. That’s when her eyes rolled upwards and caught legs dangling in the air and the rest of the doctor’s torso strung from the ceiling fan.
Viktoria let out a cry. His hung body was too gruesome to witness for one second. Her heartbeat sped with terror. She raced over and grasped the doctor’s lower limbs to try and provide some slack.
With difficulty, she whipped out her cell phone and, with one hand, speed dialed down to the ER.
-----
It seemed like an eternity. As Viktoria waited through the few minutes it took for personnel to arrive from the emergency room, it felt like she was embedded in a horror movie. She clutched a dead man on a rope. He was unlike any type of deceased person she had ever come in contact with, including medical school cadavers.
The door crashed all the way open and three individuals rushed straight for her. Her load lessened and one of the men used the same chair Jessy Winter had just used as a prop. The knot loosened and Jessy fell into the other man and woman’s arms.
Viktoria qualified as an expert at airway skills and advanced cardiac life support, but the three individuals were over the obstetrician in a flash.
“No, don’t,” one of them said to his partner who leaned forward as if contemplating chest compressions. He palpated no carotid pulse, and peeking under Jessy’s scrubs, his feet were blue, and his face waxed over in shades of purple.
“He’s been here, like this,” continued the ER physician, “up to a half hour already.”
“Nurses have been trying to find him at least that long,” Viktoria said. “I just did one of his deliveries.”
“We should call the cops,” the man said. “Need to cover all the basics.”
“I better try to get a hold of one of his colleagues in his practice to cover the rest of his call,” Viktoria said.
“Cops may want a statement from you. How you found him.” He shook his head. “I heard some rumors about Dr. Winter’s state of affairs only today. This went too far. It’s a crying shame when people take their own life, and more so when it’s someone who’s made a career of helping others.”
“I talked to him yesterday. He was really down.” She sighed and her eyes moistened. “I feel terrible. I should have read between the lines and realized how deep his despondency went.”
“You’re not a psychiatrist,” the other female doctor said.
“But still, we all know the warning signs …”
“You better get the operator to get a hold of one of his partners, otherwise all three of us will need to step up and deliver babies tonight.”
Viktoria went back and forth to her own call room. She broke the bad news
to one of Jessy’s partners and was assured the call night would be covered.
A robust police officer soon asked her questions and, although most of them were easy to answer, she hated to describe the grisly scene she encountered and how she found Dr. Winter. She told him her concern about his depressed state due to being kicked out of living in the hospital and his own home.
“A marriage and a career all blown away in one week,” Viktoria said.
The officer didn’t flinch, much like he’d heard the same scenario before. “I’ll tell the ex-wife when we get done here.” He glanced down at the dead body. “Nothing smacks of foul play, unless we want to include the doctor committing his own suicide. But an autopsy will tell us for sure, as well as the security camera mounted in the hallway. That is, if anyone else lurked around at the time.”
“You finished with me?”
“You bet.”
With a few steps, Viktoria entered her own call room. She slipped under the covers soon and her thoughts concentrated on her discussion with Jessy Winter the day before. When they had talked about his situation, she told him to seek happiness in other ways, such as spending time with his daughter, or a puppy, or nature.
“It doesn’t work that way,” he had retorted. And then, even though he said “I’ll see you around,” he didn’t mean it.
She admonished herself. She should have done more than say “My ears are open for listening.”
As mental exhaustion set in, Viktoria somehow fell asleep. To her surprise, the rest of the night made an abrupt turn and treated her kindly. Not one call came through for her to do an emergency surgical case in the OR.
-----
By habit, Viktoria woke at 5 a.m. She couldn’t help that because waking before sunrise went along with the specialty she had chosen. Even retired anesthesiologists that she knew continued to wake at that time. The typical anesthesia doctor started work at 7 a.m. or before because OR cases started at 8 a.m. and patients needed to be seen and ready by then.
In addition, if a major surgery was booked first, invasive monitoring needed to be started. Anesthesia procedures needed to be done expertly and like clockwork to assure they would start on time. For a hospital, every single minute of OR time was worth hundreds of dollars and, if a room was empty, that cost them.
She brushed her teeth and rubbed her face with liquid soap. After letting down her hair, she ran a brush through it, and piled it back up on her head. Finding Jessy Winter hung from the fan still bothered her, she doubted the creepiness of it would leave her memory for some time.
Dr. Thorsdottir left the call room towing her bag and totally ignored room seven. In the doctor’s lounge, she brewed a robust blend, and brought a hot cup into the anesthesia office.
On her thirteen-inch computer, she researched the medical literature. For the last few years, the subject had grown out of the dormant state it had previously assumed, and become more mainstream with both physicians and for those following such data. The general public had less interest in the sub-category of “physicians” taking their own life.
Any joy she felt from her lucky night of not doing cases was soon blown away by the bleak statistics. She was aware for some time that doctors had the highest suicide rate of any profession, including the military. One physician succeeded in “doing it” in the United States every single day, and they outnumbered the general population by two to one.
But further statistics were worse than she thought; worse than those she remembered reading about two or three years ago. Female physicians, although their mortality rate was the same as male physicians, attempted suicide at far greater rates than men. Up to 250% the rate of men.
She shuddered and read that the most common underlying condition was depression. Like the general public, if depression remained untreated or under treated, the consequences could be devastating.
Psychiatrists and mental health experts were worth their weight in gold, she thought, because early diagnosis and treatment of depression was critical. Regrettably, she should have reached out much more to Jessy Winter when he voiced his predicament to her. Now it was too late.
Viktoria sipped steadily until the only coffee remaining at the bottom of the cup were a few grinds which had escaped the glass pot. With only ten minutes left to her “shift,” a young anesthesiologist walked in wearing scrubs and his white doctor’s jacket.
“Hello there,” he said. “You must be the one and only Viktoria Thorsdottir.”
“I am. And you are Everett Benson?”
“At your service to spring you loose for the big wedding today.”
“Not exactly. I’m temporary help and I never succeed at making it onto local invitation lists.”
“You’re working in the department, aren’t you?”
“Sure, but …”
“The entire anesthesia department is invited and practically every doctor, nurse, or tech who has anything to do with the OR is invited, and the list spills over into other departments too. Nah. You should go. Food will be plenty and there will be folks who can’t make it. Fill their shoes.” His chest rose with a deep breath. “Like Dr. Winter. He’s obviously not going to be there. The news of what happened last night practically hit me in the parking lot. How awful.”
“I should say. I found him.”
“Oh my God.” Everett stared at her and gritted his teeth. “Then you really need to go. Best to deviate your thoughts today. Did you sleep?”
“After midnight. Thank goodness.”
“I heard he was going through a rough time, but nothing justified his suicide.”
“But physicians are the worst. They have personal problems just like everybody else, and if you lump in their time constraints due to their job, their responsibility, and the need to constantly fulfill their educational requirements, that makes for a heavy burden.”
The young doctor’s eyes narrowed. “You’re right, I’m sure. Someone I knew committed suicide in medical school. Can you imagine? As my dad used to say, he had barely mounted the horse yet.”
Viktoria closed her eyes for a moment. “That’s sad.”
“But listen, I speak for Jennie and Casey. Our two romantic CRNAs would be happy if you showed up. I’ll tell them I twisted your arm. Plus, you’re in a strange town. What else can you spend your Saturday doing?”
Viktoria tilted her head. “I befriended a dog.”
“Here.” He grabbed a notepad, wrote down their address from his phone’s contact list, and put it straight into her hand. “Dog or not, you still have to eat. Now there’s no excuse. Wedding’s at four and the reception follows.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“That’s good enough.”
-----
A second cup of coffee was on Viktoria’s radar, but she didn’t have the heart to keep Buddy waiting any longer than necessary. She passed right by the coffee shop and ended up pulling into the Stay Long Hotel. A dark sedan and an old-fashioned station wagon were newly parked in front of her building. She sprang out of her Honda Accord and went straight to her door.
Buddy gave her the biggest greeting yet when she opened the door. As if chasing his tail, he spun around, and then jumped to her waist several times.
“Whoa, Buddy! No jumping. Let’s get you outside immediately.”
Viktoria leashed him and they went for a short walk. As Buddy peed on a tree, she scanned the sky. So far, it looked to be the perfect day for a wedding. With blue skies and a cool breeze, Jennie’s outdoor planning was close to paying off.
Remembering her own wedding, Viktoria kicked a pebble. The ceremony and the reception were both indoors. Maybe that was what set them off on the wrong foot, she thought. They didn’t tie the knot outside in the great outdoors or fly off in a jumbo jet to the Hawaiian Islands. No, she figured, that was not it at all. Had she known then what she knew now, the wedding would have never materialized.
Viktoria guided Buddy over to the front office and stepped in to find Mason at the cou
nter.
“Good morning,” she said. “You’re not hiding in the room behind the wall.”
“I guess not. Everything going okay for you?”
“Peachy. I see you have new weekend guests.”
“Sure do, but it’ll start slowing down as the cooler weather begins, much to the detriment of the hotel. We’re just lucky that he’s putting money into the place and updating the accommodations.”
“So, I’ve noticed. Buddy and I have met the workers; Ben, David, and the smoker.”
“Fred. Good old Fred. Don’t get downwind of his smoke.”
“I try not to, but I don’t see them or their trucks this morning.”
“They’re off for the weekend, at least from here.” He sat down on a stool and pointed to the one-cup coffee machine. “Going to help yourself?”
“No. I’m going to change out of these scrubs and head to the coffee shop with Buddy.”
“Any more pillow mischief from him?”
“I was gone last night and just discovered that he was a good boy by himself. I trusted him and he delivered.”
Mason stepped to the end. He and Buddy closed the gap and Mason scratched his belly. The supine dog remained in the same spot, egging either of them to continue rubbing him.
Viktoria shook her head while Mason straightened up and smoothed his mustache with his fingers.
“Any complaints last night from my next-door neighbor?” Viktoria asked.
“Except for check ins, I was told it was a quiet night.” He picked up the television remote and turned down the volume. “So, any sight-seeing plans for the weekend?”
“No. Only dog time with Buddy.”
“Enjoy, but try to get around town. Your pup will be welcome most places.”
She turned towards the door. “Actually, I may go to a wedding this afternoon.”
“Wow. Not bad for your first week here. Enjoy.”
“Thanks,” she said, noting he wore no band on his wedding ring finger. “The only thing better than attending a wedding is if it’s not your own.”