She checked Dan’s airway. “Dan, can you hear me? Answer me.”
There was no response. His breathing was rapid and deep, his pulse slow and bounding. “He’s showing signs of Cushings reflex,”
she shouted. “There might be some intracranial pressure.”
“Unconscious!” Larry shouted up to the team at the mouth of the hole. “Unresponsive. Glasgow score of three.”
Carefully, Issie moved him enough to get the cervical collar on him. There could be fractures in his spine, damage to his spinal cord. Moving him out of this hole without doing further damage would be difficult.
But she couldn’t get him out until she’d intubated him. It was standard procedure when there was head trauma, just in case there was swelling in his airway. It too would be difficult, since she couldn’t move his head back to get the endotracheal tube down his throat.
If they did a nasal intubation, they could keep his neck in a neutral position. She got the tube out of her bag and inserted it into his nose. She trembled as she fed it down through his nasal cavity, praying that it would slip easily into the trachea.
Her prayer was answered, and she felt it go into place.
“Need oxygen!” she cried, and someone handed down the tank. She connected it, then checked his pulse again. It was weaker now.
They had to hurry.
“Let’s get him on the board,” she said, and another medic crawled down to help them. The hole was wide enough to lay the spineboard out beside him, and carefully they moved him onto it.
It was a miracle that he hadn’t been crushed or smothered in the smoke—or burned.
Lord, don’t let me lose him now.
They maneuvered him out of the hole, and some of the medics at the top began to run with him down the mound to an idling ambulance. She ran behind them.
“I’m going!” she said as they got him into the unit.
Two other medics followed her in, and they surrounded Dan and began taking his vitals. Another one got behind the wheel.
“Issie, I’m coming too.”
It was Mark’s voice, and she glanced out at him. “Ride shotgun, Mark,” she said. “There’s not room for you back here.”
Mark jumped into the passenger seat, and as they pulled away from the site, she felt his eyes bearing down on her as she tried to keep Dan alive.
The siren screamed as they flew down Canal Street, declaring waning life and impending death.
And she vowed that Dan would not die on her watch.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jill hadn’t slept yet, but she lay on her cot, curled up under a blanket. Someone had turned the gym lights down, but few of those keeping vigil actually slept.
Occasionally, a cell phone rang and someone answered. They were the subject of everyone’s attention for a moment, as if whatever information they were getting might impact them all. Several televisions played around the gym, the main source of their news about the progress at the site.
When she heard the distant siren winding up from several blocks away, she sat up.
Ashley’s eyes widened, and she sat up too. “They found someone. They wouldn’t need the siren unless they’d found a survivor.”
Jill grabbed onto that hope and held it like a lifeline.
Others around the room began to get up as the siren moved toward them. Some of them headed for the door.
“Come on,” she told Ashley, and the two of them pushed through the cots and burst out of the school as the ambulance raced by.
The group on the sidewalk cheered, and strangers began to hug, hope animating all of their weary faces. It could be any one of their loved ones, or several of them.
Ashley began to cry again, and Jill pulled her into a hug and held her against her.
“Maybe,” the girl whispered.
Maybe. It was a word that held the future in its precarious grip, a word full of hope and life.
“Yes, maybe,” she said.
They went back into the gym and crowded around the information table, waiting to learn who had been found.
Suddenly, she heard her name. “Jill! Jill, it’s ringing!” Her heart shot up like a rocket from the launchpad.
The crowd parted, and Susan raced toward her and thrust the phone at her.
“Hello?”
“Jill, they found him!” Allie yelled into the phone. “He’s alive!”
Jill felt her legs give way; Susan caught her. “He’s alive? Is he all right?”
Voices rose around her as the others passed the news that someone had been found alive. Jill couldn’t hear, so she pressed a finger to her ear and headed back outside, still unsteady on her feet.
“Mark said he’s unconscious,” Allie said. “I don’t know much, except that they’ve taken him to the Medical Center. Mark said he looks bad. Head injury, possible neck and back injuries. But he’s alive, honey.”
“I’m on my way there,” Jill cried.
“Me too,” Allie said. “I’ll be there in less than an hour.”
Jill hung up the phone and turned back to Ashley. Tears streamed down the girl’s face, and she wore an expression that hovered somewhere between grateful hope and crushing disappointment.
“He’s alive, Ashley,” she said. “If he is, then others could be too.” She framed the girl’s face. “You believe that, don’t you?”
Ashley compressed her lips and nodded. “Yes. I’m happy for you. Really, I am.”
But the sorrow in her eyes said otherwise. Jill understood.
The room had suddenly grown quiet again, and Jill had the strange sensation that the world had moved into slow motion.
“Do you want to go with us?” Jill asked the girl.
“No . . . I have to stay here. I have to wait.”
Jill turned to Susan. “Do you have a pen and something to write on?”
Susan dug through her purse and handed her a pen and an old receipt.
Jill jotted her name and number down.
“I’ll be praying for you, okay? If you need to talk, I’ll be checking in for messages. Are you going to be all right?”
“Sure. I’ll be fine.”
But Jill knew that wasn’t true. It was cruel, leaving her here. Yet what could she do?
“Thanks, like, for letting me hang with you.”
Jill managed a smile. “They’ll find your mother, honey. I know they will. And it’ll be soon.”
The girl looked old and beaten, and there was little hope in her eyes. They hugged again, then Jill wove her way through the envious crowd, and she and Susan headed for the hospital.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Medical Center of Louisiana consisted of Charity and University Hospitals and served as a Level One trauma center for the entire New Orleans area. Jill had once handled a malpractice case against the center. It had been settled out of court, but in the course of preparing for the case, she had learned much that impressed her about the medical staff at the center, which received emergency referrals from eight state hospitals.
If she’d been able to choose where Dan was taken, this would have been it.
Susan dropped her off at the door to the emergency room. The ambulance still idled outside, its lights flashing and its back door open. Dan had apparently been taken inside.
She found Mark sitting in the waiting room, filthy and reeking of smoke and sweat. He rose to hug her. She locked her arms around him and felt the burden of the past hours crushing through her.
“How is he?” she asked.
“Still unconscious, and his vital signs are weak. He’s hanging on, though, Jill.” His voice broke off, and a look of frantic despair pulled at his face.
Jill refused to feel that despair. Dan couldn’t die. He had survived a thirty-story building crashing on him. His organs had been strong enough to get him this far.
“He’s gonna be all right,” she said, pulling back and lifting her chin. “He’ll make it. God wouldn’t bring him this far just to let him die,
would he? He has his hand on Dan.”
“I think so, too,” Mark whispered.
“Where is he?”
“In an examining room. They’re checking him out. They said they’d come tell us as soon as they know something. Issie’s still back there with him.”
“I have to see him.” She went to the desk where a nurse sat talking in a low voice on the phone. She was heavyset, with a sweet face that reminded Jill of one of her great-aunts, and she wore a red cotton lab coat with little cartoon flowers all over it.
She put her hand over the phone when she saw Jill, and whispered, “May I help you?”
“Yes, my husband was just brought in from the Icon site. Dan Nichols. I have to see him.”
“Of course, honey.” The woman quickly got off the phone. “I’ll go see if you can go back.”
Susan came in then and hugged Mark as if he were her long-lost son. “I’m so glad to see you, sweetie!” she said. “We could’ve lost you.”
Mark nodded, unable to speak.
The nurse returned and held the door open for Jill. “Honey, follow me and I’ll take you to your husband.”
Jill followed the nurse into the cold, antiseptic hall.
“You don’t look so good, yourself,” the woman said. “Were you in the building, too?”
Jill hadn’t even looked in the mirror since her shower. She supposed her bruises had darkened, and the scrapes and cuts on her face and arms must make her look as if she’d been in a fight. “Yes, I got out just before the building crashed.”
The woman began to silently weep as they walked, and Jill felt the sudden, weary obligation to comfort her. But she didn’t have anything to give.
“What an awful day for you,” the nurse said, “wondering if your husband was alive. What a miracle they found him in time.”
“Yes, it is,” Jill said.
She looked up ahead and saw Issie coming out of a room. “Issie!”
The two of them held each other in silence for a moment. “Come on,” Issie said, taking her arm. “I’ll take you back.”
Issie led Jill into a room where a team of doctors and nurses worked in urgent frenzy. She couldn’t even see Dan in the midst of them.
Suddenly, fear overtook her.
“Dr. Hudson, this is his wife,” Issie said.
One of the doctors turned. He wore a surgical mask and cap, but he had kind eyes.
“Is he—is he all right?” Jill asked.
“We’re doing our best to stabilize him,” the doctor said. “He came to for a few minutes, which is a good sign.”
“He did?”
“Yes. It’s possible that he hasn’t been unconscious the entire time. That indicates that his head injury may not be as severe as we first suspected.”
“Did he speak?”
“He can’t,” Issie said. “He’s been intubated.”
She moved toward the bed, straining to see between two doctors. She touched a resident’s sleeve, gently pushed him aside.
And then she saw him.
He looked dead already. His closed eyes seemed sunken in, and his skin was a deadly gray. His lips were dry and cracked. She managed to get to his head, and she bent over him, touching his face gently. “Honey, it’s me, Jill.”
There was no response, so she turned her wet eyes to the doctor. He was blurred through her tears. “Is he going to make it?”
“The next twenty-four hours or so are critical,” he said softly. “He’s got a thoracic fracture. We’re about to prep him for surgery.”
Jill touched Dan’s hand. It was cold, limp. “Thoracic fracture,” she repeated. “What does that mean?”
“It means his back is broken. Dr. Henderson, our thoracic surgeon, is on his way, and Dr. Grist from Oschner’s, who’s one of the finest thoracic surgeons in the country, is coming to assist. We have to remove any bone fragments and stabilize his spine so there’s no further injury to the spinal cord or exiting nerves.”
Damage to the spinal cord? She wondered if that meant paralysis. Suddenly she was gripped with a sense of urgency. Unwilling to delay Dan’s surgery, she backed away from the bed. “Whatever you can do,” she said. “Whatever can be done.”
“After surgery, we’ll let you see him for a few minutes, but then we’ll move him to ICU.”
“Yes,” Jill said. “Good.”
“Meanwhile, if you’ll go with Dr. Clemens, he needs to ask you a few questions about your husband’s medical history.”
She nodded and let the resident lead her out, but before she left the room, she looked back at Dan.
The horror wasn’t over yet, but she refused to believe that he wouldn’t come through it. He simply had to live.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Aunt Aggie came bearing biscuits.
She brought enough to feed an army of doctors and nurses, as well as all of the friends who’d begun arriving at the hospital to keep vigil with Jill. There was even enough for the others in the ICU waiting room.
Jill had no appetite, but she ate to appease the old woman. Turning down Aunt Aggie’s “eats” was tantamount to slapping her in the face. Jill wouldn’t dare.
Allie, who had come soon after Dan went into surgery, sat curled next to Mark. They’d had a sweet reunion, which created a yearning in Jill that brought her to tears. Celia had come with Aunt Aggie and joined Susan in supporting Jill. She firmly believed that the prayer power in this room would pull Dan through.
It was almost six in the morning when Dan came out of surgery. Dr. Grist found her in the waiting room, and her friends gathered around her for the news.
“How is he?”
“We had a few problems during surgery,” he said. “Your husband’s lung collapsed . . .”
Jill caught her breath and backed away. Was he about to tell her that Dan was dead? She thought of stopping him. Couldn’t he let her go on thinking that he could be all right? Just for a little while longer?
But he continued. “We inserted a chest tube and put him on a respirator. Several ribs were broken, but we stabilized his spine, and we had to stop some internal bleeding.”
“So . . . he’s alive?”
“Yes,” he said. “He’s very strong, Mrs. Nichols, but he’s not out of the woods. The next twenty-four hours are critical.”
She started to cry then—from relief or fear, she didn’t know.
Susan hugged her. “He’ll pull through, sweetie. He’s come this far.”
Aunt Aggie grabbed her next. “He’s tough, that boy is, sha. He gon’ be awright.”
Mark held her shoulders and made her look up at him. “Jill, think of those lungs. Who in the whole state has a better set of lungs than he has? The guy runs five miles a day.”
She knew it was all true. He was strong. But would he make it through this?
The nurse led her back to his bed in ICU, and Jill tried to hold herself together as she got her first clear look at him.
He still looked dead.
Black circles shadowed his eyes, and black-and-red bruises marred his white-gray skin.
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. His stubble was thick, and the normalcy in that comforted her. She touched his face. “Dan? Honey, it’s me. You’re going to be all right, do you hear me? You’re going to come out of this.”
He didn’t respond.
She pulled back his sheet to see the extent of his injuries. Bruises marked his chest and rib cage, and they had bandaged him in places.
But he still looked so athletic, so strong.
Jill thought of all the times she’d teased him about his constant need to work out. The guys on his shift were merciless in their ribbing. She had always asked him what, exactly, he was training for.
Now she knew.
His right biceps was scratched and bruised, but it was still bulky and hard. He was still Dan, not just some shell of her husband.
She covered him back up and pressed her face against his. Her tears dropped onto his pillow. “Lord,�
�� she whispered against his skin. “I know you’re here. You’re in control of all this. You can touch him and heal him.”
She wept over him as she prayed, longing for him to open his eyes and tell her things would be all right. But he slept deeply, unresponsive, leaving her to wonder if his brain had been damaged, if his memory would be intact, if he would even know her when he came to himself.
At least he was here, where experts could care for him, and not buried under concrete and steel.
She had much to be thankful for.
Stroking his arm, she began to whisper the Twenty-third Psalm. Slowly, gradually, the comforting words calmed her fears. She and Dan weren’t alone. It wasn’t up to the doctors and nurses to determine whether Dan lived or died.
It was up to the Great Shepherd, who had led him out of the valley of the shadow of death.
She would fear no evil now.
Chapter Twenty-Five
By midmorning, Jill’s body had begun to ache. She didn’t remember injuring her knees, her back, or her neck, but that initial explosion had thrown her pretty hard. It would take awhile to work the soreness out.
She moved slowly, fatigue making her limbs heavy. She needed sleep, but anything could happen with Dan. She wasn’t sure her friends would wake her at his visiting time if she fell asleep.
Her lungs were congested, and her chest ached from coughing. Dan’s doctor had prescribed an antibiotic and something to help her breathing, as well as a mild anti-inflammatory to help with her soreness. Susan, who had been with her all night and was almost as tired as she, had gone to get the prescription filled.
As she waited for visiting time, Jill wondered about Ashley’s mother. Had she been found, or was the girl still camped out on a cot in that room full of suffering?
Her court reporter, Wanda, had sent word that she was fine. She had gotten out in plenty of time.
Jill wondered about Gordon Webster. That firefighter who had come along and taken Gordon from them had certainly saved her life and Ashley’s, for she and Ashley could never have gotten Gordon out in time. But she wondered if the firefighter had managed to save Gordon . . . or himself.
She hadn’t seen them come out, but then, she’d been looking for Dan.
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