Anna Park's Story

Anna Park

Silence had for once settled over the on-call room, allowing Anna a few moments of shut eye as she waited for the inevitable buzz of her pager. Spending the night at the hospital wasn't so unusual. In fact she had been there for the past two nights and had only been back to her apartment once in the past 24 hours. It has been exceptionally busy in the hospital with strange cases coming in left and right.

Just as she had begun to drift into restful sleep the cursed buzzing noise started up. She looks at her pager with eyes full of hatred, though she knows its not the devices fault. Quickly and without dallying she climbs down off the top bunk, careful not to disturb the nurse laying down on the bottom bed, and heads out into the hustle and bustle of the hospital.

"Hey, got a kid in room 302 complaining her stomach hurts," Sharon snaps from her place at the front desk. Usually she isn't so grumpy, but being here so long probably has her on edge. She hands a stack of papers to Anna to fill out while checking up on the kid.

"Great, and here I thought I would get a few minutes of shut eye." Anna sighs.

"Yeah well apparently only the dead get to sleep around here," Sharon sympathizes, though Anna feels a prickling of anger at the fact that Sharon gets to sit on her butt all day while mostly everyone else runs around. Desk work has never looked so appealing to Anna before, but after the past few days she thinks it would be far better than what she's doing now.

"-op spacing out and get going." Sharon chastises her, though Anna barely catches the latter half of her sentence. She hadn't even noticed she was spacing out. She rubs her eyes and nods, quickly heading off to room 302. She knocked before entering.

What Anna see's makes her almost drop the papers she's holding in her hands. The girl in question is laying incredibly still, holding her stomach and making strange rasping noises when she breathes. She's only five years old , and looks to be in a serious amount of pain. Anna glances at the chart to get the girls name; which is Amber. The girls mother looks instantly relieved to have someone else in the room. "She's been like this for hours," the girls mother quickly starts speaking, "She vomited earlier, and has been getting worse ever since."

"How long has the pain been going on and has she been running a fever?" Anna asks while grabbing a thermometer from the rack of tools on the wall. She quickly gets the young girl to stick it under her tongue and waits for the mothers input. "The pain has been since yesterday, or at least that's when she started complaining about it. She's been running a low fever since then as well."

"Okay," Anna nods to speaks to herself more than to the mother. She checks Amber's temperature and notices its way higher than it should be. After trashing the used thermometer cover she takes the girls blood pressure and checks her eyes, mouth, and nose as procedure dictates. Once finished taking Amber's vitals she writes a few things down, working as quickly as possible. "I'm going to apply a little bit of pressure and I need you to tell me if it hurts," Anna tells to girl, lightly pressing her hands against the left side of the girls stomach.

"A little," Amber squeaks out.

Anna nods an presses on the middle, getting more of a reaction then finally presses down over her right side. Amber jolts as if she's been shocked, groaning. "It hurts the most there," Amber says through clenched teeth. Anna sighs, it could be any number of things concerning the girls gastrointestinal system but she's suspecting at the point that its Appendicitis.

"Since the pain is low on the right side its a little concerning, she may be suffering from appendicitis in which case she will have to go to the OR immediately. So we'll have to get a blood sample to check for that," Anna tells Amber's mother.

"But first I would like to get a urine sample to rule out anything else." She moves to one of the locked cabinets and produces from it a small cup, which she hands to Amber's mother. "I'll be back in a few minutes to take the blood sample." Anna tells them, writing down a few more things on Amber's chart before heading back out into the hallways of the hospital. She has always hated taking blood, but gets over it once she gets all the materials she needs from the lab room and starts wheeling the cart back towards the room.

When she gets there neither Amber nor her mother are back yet. Which Anna doesn't think is so odd since most kids can't just pee on command. She waits a few minutes for them. Ten minutes later Anna is drawn out into the hospital by the sound of loud voices.

"What the hell is going on."

The only thing Anna can do is watch in horrified fascination as the hospital begins to swarm with extra bodies. EMT's, Nurses, and Doctors rushing here and there. the red and blue flicker of lights coming in through the windows, and patients on gurneys being wheeled in at an unbelievable pace. There are only a few actually injured patients but Anna notices quite a few of them are in shock or are unconscious.

"Don't just stand there!" One of her fellow nurses snaps at her as he rushed by wheeling one of the patients in shock. "What happened, was there an accident?" She asks another passerby, but is shrugged off and given no answer.

"Park, there you are. We had to move the girl and her mother up a floor to make room for...this mess." Sharon speaks in quick, clipped tones. Making sure to wave her arms about wildly, then motions to the EMT's at the door. "There was some sort of incident, they won't say anything other than it was some kind of small riot. Not a lot of people involved, but the ones that are here need to get evaluated and put into rooms ASAP." Sharon looks to her meaningfully.

"Alright, ill get right on it." Anna sighs in frustration, heading off the check over a few of the unconscious patients. It isn't uncommon here to have incidents like this, but its the first time Anna has been directly involved and it makes her all the more nervous as she goes to work checking over and taking patients to different rooms.