A Firefighter in Her Stocking

by Janice Lynn

  It took Sarah a few seconds to realize Mr. Johnson meant Jude.

  “I’m glad he got you out.”

  Mr. Johnson coughed so hard his oxygen sats dropped several points and Sarah began to wonder if she was going to have to suction, then intubate him.

  When he finally cleared his throat, he grabbed Sarah’s hand. “You’re Dr. Sarah Grayson?”

  She blinked in surprise. “I am.”

  “Said he was sorry.”

  “You must be...” She started to say “confused”, but why else would Mr. Johnson say something of the sort unless Jude had indeed talked about her?

  The question was why? Why would he say anything about her at all? Much less tell a virtual stranger that he was sorry?

  “He said I might see you here.” Mr. Johnson paused to cough and this time Sarah did suction him to clear the mucus from his throat.

  When the man had caught his breath, he continued as if nothing had happened. “He told me if I saw you here to put in a good word and tell you he was sorry and that he was crazy about you.”

  Sarah’s head spun. Jude had sent word to her? Why?

  “He was going back for Betty Kingston. She was in her bathroom, too. Whole place was up in flames.” The old man coughed again. “I hope he found Betty. And the Millers. And got out of that inferno.”

  Sarah’s heart pounded. Jude was inside a burning building. He was in danger.

  The thought gutted her. Made her want to call him and beg him to get out of the building if he wasn’t already.

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath.

  Examining Mr. Johnson, Sarah ended up admitting him to the medical floor and consulted orthopedic surgery. Bedside X-ray had shown he’d fractured his right hip when he’d fallen. Mrs. Johnson had suffered mild smoke inhalation and had been discharged. As Sarah expected, the woman stayed with her husband rather than leave.

  Then again, her home had burned. She might not have anywhere else to go. Not that Sarah thought she’d leave even if she did.

  Ambulances dropped off victims from a motor vehicle crash. Pedestrians came in with abdominal and chest pain. The ER stayed crazy. Sarah was swamped. But her heart wasn’t fully on what she was doing.

  Because no Betty Kingston or Millers had come into the emergency department and if they were who Jude had gone back for, surely they should be out by now? Should be in the emergency department, being given a good once-over even under the best of circumstances of being trapped inside a burning building.

  Had Jude gotten them out?

  Had Jude gotten out?

  “Oh, God!” Shelley breathed, catching Sarah’s attention. Her friend had just been at the unit desk and her face was pale. “That building that was on fire collapsed.”

  Collapsed.

  Jude!

  “Was everyone out?” she managed to squeak from her tight throat.

  Shelley shook her head. “Per the call that just came in there were people still inside. Firefighters, too.”

  The room spun around, making Sarah think she might fall to her knees.

  First one in. Last one out.

  Wasn’t that what Paul had said? Please, no.

  Please, just, no.

  “Sarah?”

  Insides shaking, she stared at Shelley. “My neighbor works for the fire department.”

  “Your neighbor?”

  Jude was so much more than her neighbor. He was...her heart.

  Sarah’s personal life never interfered with her work.

  Never.

  But for the life of her she couldn’t focus.

  Couldn’t think.

  Could only feel.

  Jude.

  “Sarah?”

  “I...um...sorry. I’m feeling a little light-headed. I’m going to grab that drink, Shelley. Be back in a few.”

  Sarah slid into the break room and leaned against the doorway. Breathing hurt.

  Everything inside her hurt.

  She couldn’t think the worst. Jude might not have been in that building. Even if he was, he could be just fine. She had to pull herself together. She had patients to see, had to get through the night no matter what happened.

  She needed to get back out there because she could hear nearing ambulance sirens wailing. Grabbing a cup, she filled it to the brim from the water dispenser, then downed it.

  She needed something much stronger, but that would have to do.

  She had this. Whatever the night brought. She had this.

  Only when the doors opened and an elderly woman and a badly burned couple were rushed in, Sarah had to mentally brace herself.

  The Millers and Betty Kingston.

  No Jude.

  Which probably meant that he was fine. He’d rescued them and was still there, fighting the fire.

  Only Sarah’s inside hurt and couldn’t let go of the fear inside her.

  Sarah and two other docs examined the new patients, taking over their care. Sarah had just gotten Mr. Miller ready to admit when there was another commotion as a group rushed in.

  A group of firefighters carrying an unconscious Jude.

  Sarah rushed over to the group, trying to get close enough to examine the man they carried.

  “Bring him in here,” she insisted, thanking God that the transport crew had just come and emptied the room minutes before.

  Shelley was there, wiping down the bed and throwing a clean sheet over it even as the men set Jude down.

  Immediately, Sarah had oxygen on him, helped Shelley undress him to get telemetry hooked up. She flinched at the deep purplish bruises across his ribs, across his shoulder, but said a silent little thank you at the strong beep that filled the room with its reassuring sound.

  “He insisted the three ambulances at the scene take the others, rather than him, that he’d wait until another showed up,” one of the men she’d met at the fire hall said.

  “When he lost consciousness, we decided there wasn’t time to wait for another ambulance to show,” Roger said, his gaze focusing in on what Sarah was doing and helping her get Jude situated on the bed as she cleaned a spot to start an intraosseous line. “So we loaded him up and brought him in the fire truck.”

  “Got him here faster than another ambulance could have gotten to us,” another of the crew Sarah had met at the fire hall party piped up. “Much less have gotten him here.”

  Even while she listened to his crew tell about how Jude had gone rogue to rescue the Millers and had them almost out when another section of the building had caved in, she, Shelley and another nurse worked on him. They started the intraosseous line and got only a grunt from Jude.

  That grunt was priceless, though, because it meant he had felt pain, that he was in there.

  “He managed to clear a path to get them out by holding up a beam for the Millers to crawl beneath. After the couple had cleared the building, they were that close, he tried to clear himself of the beam to get out, but triggered another cave-in that trapped him beneath rubble.”

  “Roger there had tried to go back in the moment he had the Kingston woman out, but Command restrained him. There was no restraining any of us when the Millers came out and we realized he was trapped twenty feet or so from an exit.”

  Thank God Roger and whoever else of Jude’s crew had gone back in.

  His blood pressure was low, his pulse slightly elevated. His oxygen was lower than it should be but not dangerously so. Yet.

  Sarah gave another order to Shelley, preparing to establish an airway. She needed to get Jude stable, to be prepared for any scenario, so they could get scans to check for internal injuries in case of hemorrhage.

  Please, don’t let him be hemorrhaging.

  Please, let him be okay.

 
Please, guide my hands and my mind as I do this.

  Oh, God, how could she do this? How could she not? She didn’t want anyone working on Jude other than herself. She needed to make sure everything possible was done, everything.

  Sarah intubated Jude, not quite believing she was doing this to him. Her hands shook. She panicked just a little when the tube met more resistance than it should have. Mentally talking her way through what she was doing, she got the tube situated, sighing in relief when she checked placement and it was good.

  Heartbeat low but steady. Airway established. Fluids going. Meds going.

  Vitals stable for the moment.

  She glanced around at the haggard, dirty crew who’d carried Jude into the emergency department. “I’m taking him for imaging to check for internal injuries and fractures. Other than insisting that he wait for the next ambulance, did he say anything particular before he went out? Mention somewhere he was hurting? That kind of thing?”

  “We carried him out, but I don’t think he’d broken anything. He’d had the air knocked out of him by the debris that fell on him.”

  “What kind of debris?”

  “The big kind. Beams, ceiling tiles, dust, who knows what all that was? Visibility was next to nil and we were digging him out as quick as possible because the upper floors of the building were gone. We could hear explosions going off and although that ground floor wasn’t on fire, the weight of everything above was pushing down hard and stuff was falling almost as fast as we could clear it.

  “We cleared him of the building. Had him lying on the ground, but he was talking some. He kept saying your name.”

  She placed her hand over Jude’s, squeezed the warmth she found there.

  “He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”

  Sarah’s gaze met Roger’s. “He has to be.”

  Which said it all.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JUDE’S HEAD HURT. So did his body. But it was a strange hurt, almost as if he were experiencing the pain from somewhere far away from reality.

  Breathing wasn’t easy and his lungs felt full of dust and smoke.

  The smoke put hazy thoughts into his head. Hazy thoughts of being in a burning building, weighed down in his gear. No, it wasn’t his gear weighing him down. It was the building itself.

  On top of him.

  He couldn’t move.

  He tried to call out for help, but words wouldn’t come. He tried to call for Sarah. He needed to tell her he was sorry, to tell her he wouldn’t let their last conversation be an argument, as it had been with Nina. But no words sounded. Nothing. Just silent screams in his head.

  Nina was there, too. Holding her hand out to him, telling him to come with her.

  His voice wouldn’t work or he’d have told her he didn’t want to go. Not with her. His place was beside Sarah.

  His heart belonged to Sarah.

  He tried to tell Nina but smoke choked him, gagging him, making him feel as if he couldn’t breathe.

  But he must be because his chest was rising and falling. He could see it doing so, felt the pain with every expansion of his chest.

  Even in his fog he realized he shouldn’t be able to see himself, shouldn’t be seeing the rise and fall of his chest. Yet he did.

  He was lying in a hospital bed. His eyes were closed. He wasn’t moving other than that chest rise and fall.

  But he wasn’t causing that excruciating rise and fall.

  A machine breathed for him.

  Somewhere in the fog he knew that should alarm him, but instead his attention went to the group huddled around him. His work family. Each and every one of them.

  And Sarah.

  Then they were all gone and a loud noise spun around him, sounding as if it was closing in on him.

  Above that, Nina’s voice came to him, calling him again.

  “Sarah.” He tried to answer, but couldn’t. He went to reach for his throat to find out why he couldn’t speak, but couldn’t move his hands.

  Nina’s voice grew louder, beckoning him.

  * * *

  The radiology crew got the computerized tomography scans and X-rays and had Jude back in an emergency room bay in record time. Sarah stayed at his side except for the few minutes he was in the CT machine and then she waited next to the tech, ready to act if anything changed on Jude’s vitals.

  She’d consulted Pulmonology to assess his lungs. Neurology to assess his lack of consciousness. And wished she had a dozen more specialists to check him over in case she’d missed something. Logically, she’d gone over everything she knew to go over, was trying to look for any unknowns, and now it was a waiting game. If he stayed stable, she’d eventually have to transfer his care to the intensive care unit, but until she had to, she planned to keep him as close as possible.

  The imaging tests showed no internal bleeding but lots of swelling and contusions. His chest images also showed that he’d fractured two ribs when the debris had fallen on him. Fortunately, they weren’t displaced and hadn’t punctured a lung or caused any significant soft-tissue damage.

  “Thank you for what you’re doing for him, Sarah.”

  She glanced over at where Roger stood, looking dirty, exhausted, ready to drop. Actually, all the fire crew did. No wonder. They’d gone from fighting fires and rescuing people to rushing one of their own to the emergency room.

  “Roger, I’m going to take you guys to a private waiting area. It’s actually where Jude waited the night we met when he’d brought in a little girl he rescued.”

  “I remember,” Roger said. “But if it’s all the same to you, we’d like to stay here with him.”

  “I understand. At least let me see if I can rustle up some chairs and some drinks, then.”

  “That would be great.”

  Sarah turned to go in search of vacant chairs and bottled drinks, but when she let go of Jude’s hand, he grabbed her hand back.

  “Oh,” she gasped, shocked at the movement. Thrilled at the movement. “Did you see that?” she asked of no one in particular. “He moved.”

  “That he did, Doc. I think he wants you to stay right where you are. I tell you what,” Roger said. “If you’ll send us in the right direction we’ll take you up on that drink and maybe a bathroom where we could wash up a little.”

  “Of course. Get the nurse who was in here earlier. Shelley. She’ll take care of everything.”

  Roger nodded, then touched Jude’s upper arm. “Wake up, my brother. I had a hot date tonight and I’m late, thanks to that fire and your nap.”

  Jude’s hand jerked against hers and a noise came from somewhere deep in his chest as the crew each said something to Jude before leaving the room.

  Sarah’s eyes watered at the bond between them.

  When she was alone with him, Sarah laced her fingers with Jude’s. “Jude? Do you hear me? It’s Sarah.”

  His hand jerked against hers again. For a moment she wondered if his movement was reflexive rather than intentional. However, when he squeezed her hand in a few rhythmic pulses her heart soared.

  Intentional. Thank you, God, intentional.

  “Jude,” she said, fighting to keep her voice clear as tears almost choked her. “This is Sarah. You’re in the emergency room. If you hear me, open your eyes.”

  Nothing.

  She squeezed his hand a little tighter than normal. “Open your eyes for me, Jude.”

  He squeezed back again.

  Sarah pulled her hand away so she could do a quick neuro check to see if he reacted to stimuli.

  Pulling out a sharp point from her scrub pocket, she pressed it against his fingertip. Jude grimaced. Sarah smiled. She’d not gotten any response when she’d checked him prior to his imaging tests.

  She ran through severa
l other neuro tests, getting reactions to each one, then moved on to the one she’d been saving for last. Mainly because looking into his eyes earlier and seeing nothing but a blank stare had almost sent her into sobs.

  She pushed his eyelids open, stared into the most beautiful blue eyes she’d ever gazed into and shone her light. As before, they responded appropriately to light, but he wasn’t seeing her.

  Or maybe he was because his stare wasn’t blank. Not like before.

  Jude saw her.

  Some might think it was her imagination or wishful thinking but she knew better. Jude was seeing her.

  She leaned closer, her face about six inches above his. “It’s time for you to wake up, Jude Davenport. Do you hear me? Wake up.”

  * * *

  Jude heard Sarah. Loud and clear. She was telling him to wake up.

  Which didn’t make sense because he was awake.

  “Wake up, Jude,” she insisted, louder.

  His throat hurt. So did his head. And his body. He hurt all over.

  “You know, tonight has been a really sucky one for me. First, you act like a total jerk at Charles and Grace’s party. Then we argue and you break my heart. As if that isn’t enough, you have the nerve to show up in my emergency room unconscious and I have to be nice to you. That’s really not fair when I just want to not like you.”

  They’d argued.

  Sarah had told him goodbye.

  She wanted to not like him.

  His heart hurt to go along with everything else.

  He and Sarah had argued. He had to tell her he was sorry—tell her he hadn’t meant to break her heart.

  “And your crew are all worried and refusing to leave. You sure you aren’t just playing possum to get attention?”

  Jude tried to say her name, thought he might have, but she didn’t respond if he had. Great. He’d try again, but couldn’t because of his throat.

  He reached up, pulled at the tubes.

  “Stop that,” Sarah ordered. “I worked hard to get that in place.”

  Sarah had done that to him?

  His hand fell away.

  And his eyes opened.

  She was right there in front of him. Mere inches from his face. Sarah.