wee hours of the night

the time was november two thousand seven the year of our Lord and the place was none other than richmond virginia in the common wealth hospital it was a cold night and the sun had been down for a long time now and i was just walking through the er doors with sleep still clouding my eyes i was there to do one thing and one thing only . . . have a good time with the indigineous persons but like always the army decided that i would be working so it was my first day working and i was still tired from the previous days my eyes hurt as the bright lights from inside the hospital shine right into them and of course as luck would have it the second i walk through the door i get grabbed by some young man who couldn't be over the age of twenty four and has this almost fearful look in his eyes as he stares at me for a split second i thought this guy was mad but then it speaks "Please tell me you're a SF medic..." and i quickly told it "yes" and with that same fear drenched persona he told me to please follow him and being very curious i did

we walk to the trauma bay and he points to a young lady sitting in a recliner and her hand wrapped in a white sweater a dirty sweater i might add "ok, cool" i said "is she looking for a date why did you bring me over here" he kinda looked around and quietly said "i'm just a first year intern on call and the resident is asleep and if i wake her she'll kill me i don't know what to do with that" i'm shocked "well . . . what do you want me to do go wake your resident for you" and he very quickly shakes his head and almost shouts "no" "can't you just help me and teach me" all i can do is sigh the one thing we hate is having to teach young doctors how to be a doctor when we aren't even doctors and don't get paid half as much as they will

"ok ok lets take a look" and i walk up to the lady and introduce myself and of course like always she asks me in that shaky nervous voice of someone who is... well nervous "are you a doctor you don't look like one you are way too young nope you can't be a doctor" and i said like always "ma'am i'm not a doctor but i am a special forces medic and i can help you or we can let sunshine over here fix you up and hope for the best" she gave a nervous half laugh and i proceeded to take off the sweater tightly wrapped around her hand

what was under that could be called a hand but i prefer the term hamburger meat i looked up at her and asked "what did you do" and she said "it got caught in a meat cuber..." and it looked awful you couldn't even tell that it was a hand and most of the bones were broken in the fingers and two of the fingers were almost upside down form the rotation of the bones that you could clearly see in various spots i turned to the nervous young doctor and said "buddy she needs a surgeon for this we're good but not that good" he says "i know but i already called him and he said he would be here in two hours since she wasn't bleeding and i'm supposed to have it clean and start sewing it close so he can operate" so like i said "cool do it then i'm going to go get a soda and talk to the pretty nurses" that's when he said "i don't know how..." and that's when i thought seriously. . . i'm going to have to spend the next 3 hours teaching this guy how to clean a wound and suture so i grudgingly grabbed a stool and told the doctor to go get a basin and two bottles of betadine and he took off to get that junk faster than i thought possible

"so why did you stick your hand in a meat cuber" i asked her "it was an accident" she said "i figured as much" i said "how old are you" she said "twenty" i said "no really" she said "forty six and a half" i said "you're really twenty" she said "yep and i'm single too" i said and then she laughed and at that point the doctor came back.

"pour the betadine in the basin and grab that bucket on the ground sit in front of her and have her hold her hand over the bucket then your going to put a hole in the top of those saline bottles on the cart and squirt it into all those wounds getting out the not human parts" that's when the nurse brought over the lidocain for numbing the hand "thank you" i said with a wink and the young brand new nurse named sarah giggled she graduated from virginia tech earlier in the year and started working as a rn two months ago she had medium length red hair and looked fit anyways back to the story "the doctor is going to numb your hand with lidocain" and the doctor shook his head rapidly and i said "i'm going to be numbing your hand are you allergic to any 'caine drug" and she said "no"

so i numbed her hand with a wrist block and she started to calm down after the needles where gone then i had the doctor clean the hand and saok it in betadine for 30 minutes then take it out and let it air dry and then the fun began we set up our sterile field . . . twice . . . then i sat down in a chair and grabbed the needle with the suture on it and was about to start doing the sewing when he siad "you aren't supposed to sit while doing that" and i just stared at him "says who" and he said "i don't know that's just the way it is" and i said "i'll tell you what we are going to be sitting here for hours sewing this jigsaw puzzle of a hand and i'm going to sit you do whatever makes you feel better now watch what i do and do the same thing" and i started sewing and explaining stopping periodically to correct him he was a nervous young doctor but he was doing a good job

six hours and three hundred and seventy eight sutures later we were done and the surgeon was waiting in the or he came down to bless off on the work and asked me to come up and assist him on the operation and i agreed so we took her up there and put some pins in her fingers and another three hours later we wheeled her out and sent her down the line the hand looked like a hand and i was hungry so i went back to the er to get some food and flirt with the nurses and then i convinced sarah to take me to breakfast and it was a good end to a good day