by Robin Cain
“Mrs. Campelletti? I am Loretta Voigt, from Victim Assistance. I’m here to help you in any way I can.” Her words, meant to soothe Sadie’s open wounds, only managed to wrap Sadie in a straightjacket of fear.
Victim Assistance? Oh my God, what the hell is going on?
Sadie climbed out of the squad car only to find her legs barely able to support her. Praying for the strength to stand on her own but not wanting to topple over, she hesitantly reached for the woman’s shoulder,
“You can help me? You can take me to Frank?” Her voice cracked from the raw painful emotion that had taken control of her.
“Yes, of course. I’m a volunteer, trained specifically to help in these situations, Mrs. Campelletti. Come with me. We just need to check in at the front desk,” Loretta told her.
As the squad car slowly pulled away, Loretta gently held Sadie’s arm and guided her to the entrance. The large glass automatic doors of the trauma center swung open as they approached. A young man sat behind the reception counter. Preoccupied with paperwork, he didn’t notice their approach. Loretta spoke first.
“Excuse me?” She glanced at the man’s name tag. “Hi Andrew, I’m from Victim Assistance. This is Mrs. Campelletti. Her husband Frank was brought in awhile ago.” Loretta placed her ID on the counter for Andrew’s inspection.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. What’s his name?” he asked, still not looking up.
Sadie, fully incensed with his complacency, began to shout.
“Frank Campelletti!” What little remained of her composure had now crumbled. The unfortunate inhabitants of the waiting room, seated in uncomfortable hard plastic chairs quietly reading month-old magazines, raised their heads to evaluate the ruckus and gauge this woman’s crisis against their own. “He was in a car accident and I was told he was brought here.”
“Yes, ma’am. You are next of kin?” Trained to deal with the drama common to the Emergency Room, Andrew’s job was to remain composed. And he did so—disturbingly well.
“Yes. I’m his w-wife.”
The word alone put Sadie in a position for which she wasn’t prepared or willing to accept. Panic gnawed at the edges of her sanity and she didn’t know how much longer she could contain the sobs that rose up into her throat. When Loretta’s hand tightened on her arm, she realized her desire to jump over the counter and strangle Andrew had become obvious. Uncertain whether to be annoyed with her or grateful, Sadie tried to take a deep cleansing breath.
“Let me call Dr. Williams. Take a seat and she’ll be with you in a moment,” Andrew finally offered, reaching for the phone and gesturing to the few remaining empty chairs across the room. Before Sadie or Loretta could offer another form of argument, a tall, redhead outfitted in surgical scrubs and looking like she hadn’t slept in days came around the corner and nodded to Andrew behind the reception desk.
“Mrs. Campelletti?” the woman said, as she extended her hand to Sadie. “I’m Dr. Williams, head of the trauma team here.” She nodded at Loretta whom she recognized from previous cases. When Sadie failed to speak, Dr. Williams continued. “Please. Let’s go into one of the rooms over here.”
Directing Sadie and Loretta to follow, Dr. Williams walked to a smaller waiting room off the main hallway. With a table, four chairs and a door, this room offered greater privacy than the main entrance area. They took a seat as Dr. Williams quietly closed the door. She took the chair across from Sadie, set her file on the table and folded her hands on top of it. She leaned in closer to speak to them. Her training dictated that each of her words be carefully weighed and measured before spoken.
“Mrs. Campelletti, your husband has been in a serious car accident. He’s in stable condition, but he’s sustained some pretty serious leg and back injuries.”
“He’s alive...” Sadie’s voice, weakened from emotion, trailed off.
“Yes. He has a femoral shaft fracture of the right leg and an acute L3 burst fracture—which is his lower spine. Right now, we are most concerned with the spinal injury. For lumbar burst fractures where neurological injury has occurred, surgery is appropriate. We are not certain how much permanent nerve damage he has sustained. Currently, his lower reflexes are absent.” She paused to let the words sink in. She wanted to make sure they registered. “The CT we performed showed canal compromise and, in the presence of a neurological deficit, this provides a much stronger incentive for surgical decompression and stabilization through surgical means.”
“Absent?” Sadie was trying to process this in terms that made sense. “Are you saying he’s paralyzed?” Tears began to slide down her face.
Loretta reached for the Kleenex in her purse and handed it to Sadie. Dr. Williams gave Sadie a moment to compose herself.
“Spinal shock can last twenty-four to forty-eight hours and any neurological deficit may be temporary, but there is the risk of permanent neurological damage. When there is a degree of canal compromise, as there is in this case, the risk of neurological injury is correspondingly greater. Patients treated urgently, less than ten hours after injury, have improved neurological outcomes. Spinal realignment and rigid instrumentation of the area, as well as bone grafting of the vertebral body, is our recommendation. We also need to repair his leg. This will involve insertion of a metal rod down the center of his thigh bone. Reconnecting the two ends of the bone, the rod will be secured in place with screws both above and below the fracture.”
Sadie, openly crying now, looked the doctor directly in the eyes.
“He’ll recover, won’t he? I mean, the paralysis is temporary, right?”
“We don’t know that yet. I’m sorry. As I said, the shock to the spinal column, combined with the damage to his leg, doesn’t provide a definitive answer to the neurological outcome. He has sustained major trauma to the spinal column and surrounding tissue and nerves. We will know more after the surgeries. I’m very sorry, Mrs. Campelletti.”
There was no longer any feeling anywhere in Sadie’s body. She was breathing; her heart was beating; her eyes were blinking; but all of her nerve endings seemed to have completely disappeared. It was as if her entire body had turned to stone, leaving her paralyzed in this single moment.
This must be how Frank feels.
Tears dripped down her face onto her hands in her lap and she was unable to even move to wipe them away. Guilt for not being with him swamped her consciousness.
This is all my fault.
Loretta reached out, putting a hand on Sadie’s back, as Dr. Williams rose from her chair.
“I can take you to see him now, but we need to prep him for surgery right away. There are some papers we need you to sign, as well.” Dr. Williams glanced at Loretta, implying an appeal for assistance. Loretta stood and grabbed more tissues from her purse.
“Come on, honey. Let’s go get you to your husband.”
Offering the tissues and a strong arm, Loretta helped Sadie to her feet. Now very unsteady and disturbingly quiet, Sadie was displaying indicators of shock.
They followed Dr. Williams out of the room and back to the reception area. An elderly couple, crossing in front of them as they passed, walked up to the same indifferent Andrew. The older gentleman, visibly shaken, spoke first.
“Excuse me? We were called about our daughter. She was in a car accident tonight?” His tone held hope that the answer might be different this time.
“Her name, please?” Andrew asked, again without looking up.
“Citra. Citra Banks. We’re her parents,” the old man said, his arm winding around his wife’s stooped shoulders.
Sadie stopped dead in her tracks, turned and stared, trying to make sense of what she had just heard.
Frank had not been alone.
fourteen
TOO NUMB to question Citra’s role in all this, Sadie couldn’t fathom any answer beyond the one that convinced her Frank was going to be okay. Led by Dr. Williams and Loretta, Sadie went back to the Emergency Room area.
She moved slowly, terrified of what she’d f
ind. Hidden behind a sliding drape, in a hospital bed at the end of a row overflowing with other ER patients, Frank was lying very still, with closed eyes, unaware of the beeping machines and tubes invading his body. Though Sadie had been warned that Frank would be heavily sedated, she still reached out and touched his arm. He didn’t stir. Dr. Williams, walking up beside her, placed a gentle hand on her back.
“He is sedated and we really need to get him to surgery.”
Sadie leaned over and kissed Frank tenderly on the top of his head.
“I’m right here, Frank. It’s all going to be okay,” Sadie whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. A single tear fell on his forehead. Reaching to carefully wipe it away, she felt the chill of his now pale skin. She straightened the thin cotton blanket that lay over him and tightened it closer around him.
“Frank, I’m here now. Please open your eyes and let me know you are okay,” she pleaded. She needed him up and out of that bed. Now. He was the rock; not her. This just had to be a terrible joke someone was playing. She began to panic. “Frank? Frank! Wake up! Frank? Come on, now!”
Witnessing Sadie’s sudden spin into hysteria, Dr. Williams took hold of her arm and coaxed her back from the side of the bed as gently as she could.
“Mrs. Campelletti, please. Come with me now. He’s in good hands and he needs to get to surgery.”
Once Dr. Williams was able to get Sadie to walk away from the bed, she guided her down the aisle, with one arm around her shoulder, and motioned to Loretta. They had to get her into a quiet room and get her calmed down. This surgery was going to take hours, and Sadie seemed to be falling apart quickly. Dr. Williams, still extremely concerned with Frank’s condition, was anxious to get going.
Handing Sadie off to Loretta, Dr. Williams hustled off, preoccupied with the tasks ahead. Dr. Celestina, the hospital’s best spinal surgeon, had just arrived and was up in X-ray reviewing the case. Williams needed to get up there and hear her take on the case. She pushed the elevator button and felt the knots of tension in her back and neck. She didn’t have a good feeling about this case.
Though the accident had occurred close to the hospital and witnesses had called 911 immediately, neither the driver nor passenger had been wearing their seat belts. EMTs at the scene had to call for the Jaws of Life to extract Mr. Campelletti from the vehicle. He had been trapped under the dashboard, his legs and back sustaining most of the damage. The airbag had most likely saved him from any severe thoracic injuries, but the lack of seat belt had caused him to be thrown downward upon impact. The female passenger, though not her patient, had fared much better, sustaining some lacerations and a broken rib. She would most likely recover nicely.
Dr. Williams reached the surgical floor and walked briskly down the hall. Mr. Campelletti was a pretty famous man in town and, though her patient goal was always for one-hundred-percent recovery, she thought how tragic it would be if this man, in particular, never walked again.
Downstairs, Sadie was throwing up in the ER restroom. Her violent retching offered no remedy for the god-forsaken ache swallowing up her soul. Standing nearby, holding Sadie’s hair back out of her face, Loretta waited, knowing there was no magic potion for fear or grief.
Once Sadie had emptied the bile in her system, she stood, wiped her mouth, and felt a little more ready to try and cope with the realities she faced. Loretta gave her some mouthwash and a toothbrush she carried just for these cases and waited while Sadie freshened up. Loretta then led Sadie down to Admitting, where she watched Sadie scribble her signature on a pile of forms she hadn’t bothered to read. That accomplished, Loretta led the way to the hospital’s chapel to introduce Sadie to the crisis counselor, Linda Bowen. Loretta was a volunteer trained in helping people wind their way through the system’s procedures and contacting the right people at the right time whereas Mrs. Bowen was a professional trained to deal with the emotions Sadie was experiencing.
A petite woman in her late fifties, slightly overweight with a head full of curly gray hair, Mrs. Bowen had a warm smile and kind eyes that made her look like someone’s sweet grandmother. Due to the numerous times she had misplaced them, her eyeglasses, with their dark, oversized round frames, hung from a chain around her neck. Watching Mrs. Bowen put them on as she walked over to greet them, Sadie was reminded of the wise old owl in the Winnie the Pooh stories.
Mrs. Bowen did not consider herself a particularly religious woman but, nonetheless, she made it her habit to meet with clients in this hospital chapel, since its privacy, quiet and spiritual significance typically helped calm a stressful situation. Whether one believed in God or any other higher spirit, she found that the chapel’s ambiance and sanctity brought most people some bit of hope and faith in their most troubling of times. She hoped it would do the same for this distraught woman in front of her. Previously briefed on the case, Mrs. Bowen knew Mr. Campelletti’s surgery was going to likely take several hours and, if that was the case, Mrs. Campelletti was in for a long day.
Though it was a Victim Assistance job to make sure the clients had an understanding of what services the hospital offered in terms of waiting areas, telephone usage, the cafeteria, chapel and any necessary additional support, it was Mrs. Bowen’s job to bring some enlightenment and comfort to the people who waited. Aware that it was inappropriate to form or discuss opinions on medical care and treatment separate from attending medical personnel, Mrs. Bowen knew from experience that family members appreciated any bit of information provided. Fear tended to recede in the face of facts. Basic status reports, sent to her via pager from the surgical unit, enabled her to pass information along to the anxious relatives. It was a good system and it freed up the medical staff to do their jobs, without having to continually deal with the frequent inquiries from distraught family members.
“Mrs. Campelletti?”
“Please call me Sadie.”
“Alright. Sadie, everything is going to be okay. Everything you are feeling now is perfectly normal and necessary. My job is to keep you informed. The more you know, the better off you’ll be. I’ve already been alerted that surgery has gotten underway and it will be several hours before we know anything.”
“We’re newly married...” With her mind not working properly, Sadie’s explanation trailed off into nowhere. “I don’t even know who to call.”
“Honey, you don’t have to call anyone right now if you aren’t up to it. Wait until you know more. That’s fine. How long have you been married, dear?” Mrs. Bowen needed to get her to focus on something besides the accident right now.
“A couple of months. Not long. What if he’s paralyzed?” Sadie asked, looking into the wise old owl’s eyes and pleading for answers.
“Sadie, we can’t worry about that now,” Mrs. Bowen said, gently patting Sadie’s hand. “Let’s wait and see how he comes out of surgery. I’m sure he’s a fighter.”
They sat chatting for a bit, but it wasn’t long until Mrs. Bowen and Loretta both sensed that Sadie wanted some time alone. Once again offering any assistance that may be needed, Mrs. Bowen reached out and tenderly put her arms around Sadie.
“We will check back with you in awhile. This chapel is open around the clock so, if you prefer to wait here, that is fine. When we get any word from the medical team, we will come find you, okay? Here is my pager number.”
“Thank you both,” Sadie’s said, her voice was choked with emotion. She took the slip of paper from Mrs. Bowen before the two women left the chapel.
Sitting quietly on the hard wooden pew, Sadie looked around, trying to take comfort in the silence. A large wooden cross bearing the crucified Jesus hung on the front wall. A stained-glass window rose high above the cross, soaring to the edge of the ceiling. The morning sunlight, now streaming in, created a multicolored collage on the carpeted floor at her feet. Piped in from some unseen sound system, the soft strains of a mournful flute played in the distance, though one had to sit very still to hear it.
Praying to whomever was willing t
o listen, Sadie pleaded to let Frank get through this surgery. Her mind, unable to wrap itself around how and why this had happened, raced in multiple directions. The policewoman at her front door, the panic she felt, the rush to the hospital—it was all just a blur. Looking down at her badly wrinkled pants and hastily buttoned blouse, she couldn’t even remember how they had gotten on her body. She hadn’t given a thought to anything but getting to Frank. Now that everything was beginning to sink in, she realized there were likely people to call and arrangements to make. Her mind raced through the lists, wondering who and what should come first.
What if something happens and...
Her thoughts were drifting in a dangerous direction. She couldn’t allow herself to be negative. Normally prone to believe in the power of positive thinking, she needed that strength now more than ever.
The clock on the wall indicated that four hours had passed since she’d been awakened by her doorbell. The longest four hours of her life. She watched the sweep of the second hand slowly make its way around the clock face.
Another minute gone by.
Breathing slowing and rhythmically, she became aware of every breath she took. Before long it seemed as if the movement of the clock had control of her ability to breathe—as if the clock stopped, her breathing would stop. With a sudden rise of panic and anxiousness in her chest, she struggled to breathe normally.
In.
Out.