Another hour had gone by before she knew it. These shoots were monotonous, but they paid her big bucks to wear cool looking signature white sunglasses with dark slightly mirrored lenses. She would much rather be riding her snowboard instead of riding the gondola up the mountain with these corporate clowns to take more pictures at the top of the mountain with her and her snowboard.
The manager checked his watch. “We have about an hour of shooting up here. Then, we will do a wardrobe change and head down into the city for some street shots.”
Was he checking his watch to rub it in that she was late? What a dick. She wouldn’t have been as late if she hadn’t smashed into that woman. Cason. It wasn’t like her to be late anyway. Riding in fresh powder meant more to her than having her picture taken for some magazine or the money for that matter. Nothing compared to snowboarding. In her opinion, riding the pipe was better than sex.
***
Cason was freezing when she arrived at Aspen General Hospital for the start of her first shift. She was relieving a fellow trauma doctor from Colorado Springs that she knew from their I-Team annual meetings.
“Good to see you Cason.” Mike Canterro walked up and shook her hand.
“You too Mike, I bet you’re ready to get home.”
“Oh yeah, my wife is due in three weeks so she’ll be happy to have me back home.” He smiled.
“Wow. Congratulations. Boy or girl?”
“A surprise.” He laughed. “I wanted to know so badly, but she wanted to wait, so I guess we will find out soon. I’m kind of hoping for a boy, but it doesn’t really matter.”
“Girls can be just as much of a handful, or at least that’s what I’ve always been told.” She could tell he was nervous, but any expectant father would be. She wondered if one day she’d be in his position waiting for her wife to give birth to their first child.
“Yeah, no kidding.” He pulled a notepad from his pocket. “Not much going on around here. The holiday season was pretty quiet. I had a couple of MVA’s and of course the routine slip and falls.”
“Any surgeries or follow-ups I need to know about?”
“Nope, the only operating I did was on the Operation Game in the doctor’s lounge.” He laughed. “That’s they only shitty part about doing this rotation, you really don’t see much trauma.”
“Yeah, one of my fellows at DMC calls this my vacation.” She laughed.
He shrugged. “Kind of feels like one I guess.” He smacked her on the arm lightly. “Hey take it easy. I need to get on the road. Good to see you again.”
Cason watched him walk through the sliding double doors of the ER. She didn’t have to turn around when she felt a hand rub across her back. Serena Nichols, a triage nurse, had tried to set her claws in Cason since the day she arrived for her very first shift at AGH.
“Hi Serena,” She said through clenched teeth.
“I’ve been excited for weeks. I love this time of year.” She smiled and ran her eyes over Cason seductively. Cason cringed. She really didn’t know why she hadn’t taken Serena up on her offer of casual sex when she was working the rotation. She was pretty, chestnut brown, dark green eyes, creamy pale skin and curves in all the right places. Cason wondered if she made the same offer to all of the I-Team doctors when they were on rotation.
“I should probably get settled. The ER is short a doctor tonight so it looks like I will be filling in for him as well if it gets busy.” Cason said as she walked away. It wasn’t exactly a lie, if for some reason the ER got slammed with patients she would need to fill in because one of the two doctors on shift was out sick. The odds of that happening were pretty much slim to none. Still, it gave her an excuse to get Serena hands off of her. That woman just oozed sex appeal. Two years ago Cason found out she was actually married to a truck driver that was never around. No wonder she was so horny. Maybe she should invest in a BOB.
***
Adler propped her feet up on the table in front of the couch and turned the TV on. She looked out the window at the snow covered mountain right outside the door of her townhouse. She lived in a ski-in/ski-out chalet that had been turned into luxury two bedroom townhomes on side and the other side was a huge resort. Both were walking distance to the ski lift and it was extremely quiet. Most of her neighbors were celebrities that used their townhouses as vacation homes. She had an end unit which she paid extra for, but the privacy was worth it. She wished she was out there in the snow instead of lounging on her couch.
Something fuzzy passed under legs and jumped up on the couch in a very pristine fluid motion, barely indenting the couch. She smiled.
“Hey Clyde,” She said as she ran her hand casually over the grey and white thin haired Siamese cat. He slithered closer rubbing his back further up into her hand. He meowed a few times when she rubbed his head. “I could use a massage too buddy.” She yawned and he stretched.
As soon as she closed her eyes her cell phone rang. “I wonder who that is.” She said sarcastically to the cat as she reached for the phone.
“I left you a voicemail earlier.” The male voice on the other end sounded peeved. She rolled her eyes. Clyde jumped off the couch when he heard the voice.
“I was at a photo shoot for Infinity Kevin. I went to the gym afterwards and I just got home a little while. I forgot to call you back.” She said lazily. She was getting tired of this conversation repeating itself day in and day out. “I emailed you my schedule.”
“I know babe. I just wanted to talk to you. I’m going to Cleveland in the morning to meet with the Cavaliers to continue this post lockout NBA story I’m working on. I really don’t want to go. It’s probably going to be cold as hell. Jeremy wants this piece for the cover of the February Issue so I have to go to Miami too, at least it’ll be nice down there.”
Kevin hated the cold weather, which is why she barely saw him during the snow season. It pissed her off, but she knew what she was getting into when she married him two years earlier. They met on a southern California beach where he met her to do a story for the magazine after she won her Olympic gold medal. After an entire summer of courtship he asked her to marry him. They had so much fun together surfing and walking the beach, until the cold weather rolled around. When the snow started falling she barely saw him. He’d been to her townhouse enough times to count on one hand. He had a huge house in L.A. and traveled around as a writer for ESPN Magazine.
She flipped the channel on the TV. “The X Games are in three weeks. Are you coming up here?”
“Not sure babe. It depends on what’s on the schedule. I’m going to try though. I’ve already missed both of your Tour events.” He said. She knew he meant well, he wasn’t a bad guy. She did love him, she just wished they shared more interests.
“I busted my ass in Snowmass Village today.” She said.
“Oh really. How did that happen?”
She told him the story of running late and plowing down a pedestrian. He asked if they were both okay and then laughed hysterically. “I wish I could’ve seen that. You probably scared the hell out of that woman.”
“Yeah no kidding, I really hope she’s okay.” She thought about the incident again. Cason. She hoped Cason was okay.
“I should probably go I need to be at the Staples Center a few hours early for tonight’s game to do some pre-game interviews for my article. I’ll call you soon. Love you.” He hung up before she could say anything back.
Five
Cason had just settled in for the night in the cozy little condo that the doctors used while on rotation. It was only one bedroom, but spacious enough and it was walking distance to a ski lift so she could sit and watch all the skiers coming down the mountain. She had been in town a week and so far the hospital had been fairly quiet. The pace was much slower than DMC, but she kept her twenty-four and forty-eight schedule. Although, she was still on call twenty-four-seven until she was relieved by the next rotation, it was nothing like ‘hell week’ where you literally worked a week with only a couple ho
urs of sleep when you could squeeze it in.
As soon as she took a bite of the wrap she picked up from the deli down the street from the hospital her cell phone rang. “Damn.” She said out loud as she put the wrap down and answered.
“Dr. Macauley this is Marge at Aspen General, we have an MVA coming in with severe trauma. The fire department is still trying to get the car cut open for extraction. I’m not even sure if they won’t be DOA, but Dr. Henry asked me to go ahead and call you in.”
“It’s fine Marge. I’m on the way. Call me with an update if they come in before I get there.” She ended the call and grabbed her snow boots next to the couch. She quickly laced them up and snatched her jacket from the coat rack and her keys. She turned around at the last minute to get her hat and gloves. She left her sneakers and a pile of clean scrubs in her locker at the hospital so she didn’t bust her ass or freeze to death going back and forth.
***
Adler packed her SUV with both of her snowboards and boots, plus two sets of ski clothes and a little suitcase. She trusted her neighbor to watch her cat for a couple of days as was the usual plan when she traveled. She looked around for anything she was missing and grabbed an extra ski cap just for the hell of it. She was headed over to Breckenridge to practice in their Super Pipe for the X Games. She was going to go to Park City, Utah but a few of her friends were going to Breck so she decided to meet up with them instead. She programmed her I-Pod for the three hour drive. She planned to get in before dark and get a goodnight’s sleep before hitting the pipe early in the morning.
As soon as she got on the road she hit the speed dial button and waited. She expected to leave an unanswered voicemail which was normal. She didn’t mind. Unlike Kevin who flipped if he his voicemails weren’t returned. Sure enough the voicemail picked up.
“Hey Kevin, it’s me. I’m headed over to Breckenridge to get some practice runs in. I’ll be back in a few days. I hope you’re article is coming together. Talk to you soon. Love you.” She ended the call, tossed the phone in the cup holder, and turned the radio up. Elton John was playing and she was Crocodile Rocking.
***
Cason had just changed into her scrubs when she heard the commotion down the hall from the doctor’s lounge and closet that doubled as a locker room. She flung her stethoscope around her neck and ran down the hall. Two stretchers were in the middle of the hallway surrounded by doctors and nurses. The first appeared to be a teenage female and the second looked like an adult male.
“What do we have?” Cason asked as she met them inside the triage area that doubled as a trauma unit when needed.
The EMT with the teen answered first. “She was trapped in her car for close to twenty minutes from accident to extraction. She’s been unconscious since we arrived on scene, but is responding to pain stimuli. His BP is eighty ninety-two over sixty.”
Cason checked her pupils with her pen light. They were huge, but equal size. “Put her in one.” Cason said before turning Serena. “Get her in CT scan now.”
“Dr. Macauley, I need some assistance here.” Dr. Smith, the ER doctor called to her. “This is the driver of the other car. He was trapped upside down. His BP is eighty over fifty and slowly dropping.”
Cason looked at the man’s pupils with her pen light. They were severely uneven indicating a traumatic brain injury. She felt around the parts of head that weren’t covered by the protective padding from the backboard he was still strapped to. The left frontal area of his temporal bone had movement. She raised her eyes to Dr. Smith and softly shook her head. “He has a TBI and his skull is in pieces.” She slowly released the Velcro pad on the side of his head and revealed a tiny stream of blood dripping from his left ear. “Do we have any family contact information?”
“I’ll call the officer from the scene. He should have that.” The EMT jogged towards the phone at the nurse’s station.
“Smith,” She called the ER doctor’ name as she stepped away from the stretcher. “The girl has a chance. I’m thinking concussion. She should be out of CT by now. Let’s go ahead and get a scan. I’m almost sure there’s no activity here. He was probably brain dead on impact. It looks like he smashed the left side of his head into the side of the door or window with enough force to smash his skull.” She took a deep breath. She hated seeing a patient that she couldn’t save, one that was just too far gone. “Get his family here now. We will need to pronounce him after the scan and before his BP drops any further and he arrests.”
“He looks so peaceful.” Dr. Smith said. “Do you ever get use to this?”
“Use to what?” She asked.
“Death,”
“No.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “It makes me feel like the most helpless son of a bitch in the world when there is nothing I can do. You can’t get use to feeling that helpless. It passes and you move on. And in my line of work, you see it again, time and time again.” She walked away to get the results from the CT scan for the teenage girl.
A half hour later Dr. Smith walked into the lounge. Cason was sitting in a chair nursing a nasty cup of coffee. “Mr. Cranston’s family just left. I called him at four-thirty-two.” He collapsed into the chair next to her with a heavy sigh. “The EMT’s said a witness on the scene said he tried to stop at a red light and slid on the ice right into the intersection and Trisha Miller’s car t-boned his in the driver side. His car slid into the curb and rolled over.”
“So sad, he never had a chance, especially not after hanging upside down with a TBI. The blood flowed back into his head causing massive pressure which is why it began bleeding. He didn’t suffer.” She said.
“That’s what I told his family. It seemed to help knowing he never felt the pain.” He rubbed forehead. “This was probably the worst head injury I’ve seen in my ten years at this hospital.”
“None of them are any easier than others. I’ve been ridden the chopper out to a few accidents that were so severe I needed to triage on scene. I’ve seen much, much worse. Still, it doesn’t stop me from doing what I do every day because for every patient I lose, I save hundreds more.” She stood up and tossed her cup in the trash. “I sent Trisha Miller up to ICU. Her CT Scan showed a small contusion with no bleeding and minimal swelling which is what’s causing the mild coma. She’ll probably wake up sometime during the night or in the morning. She should recover and go home in a day or two guarding any unforeseen circumstances. Her BP and sinus rhythm are normal. She’s a very lucky young girl. Serena talked to her family. I believe they are up in the ICU waiting room if you want to go let them know about Mr. Cranston’s passing.”
“Yeah, I should probably go talk to them.” He stood.
“You gonna be okay tonight?” She asked cautiously.
He smiled. “Yeah, just a little shell shocked. You’re a hell of a doctor Cason Macauley.”
“You could have caught that if I wasn’t here. It was basic analysis of an unconscious patient.”
Six
Adler stood in the snow at the top of the pipe talking to two of her friends and fellow pipe riders. She had already made eight passes and was still trying lay down a new trick which caused to land on her ass more times than she liked.
“Man you got this. I think maybe you need more speed, try moving it up in your routine.” Amy said.
“If you get that landed it’s gonna be sick.” Gordy pounded fists with her. He was one of the best male snowboarders in the world and at five foot four he looked like a dwarf on his board.
“I don’t know. If I can’t get it laid down here I’m only going to have a few days in the Aspen pipe to try to get it. I think I’m going to take your advice Amy. What the hell? I’ll either land the mother fucker or crash again.” She stood up and snapped her snow board boots into the bindings on her board and set her I-Pod to play one of her the songs from her playlist of loud fast paced songs she used for riding the pipe. Adler Troy had had more ambition and drive than most athletes put together. She was aggressive with no fear, that�
��s what made her one of the best snowboarders in the world.
Amy and Gordy both jumped up and walked up the hill to get a better full view of her run. Adler started down the hill and dropped in on the right side. She carved directly across the pipe and launched into the new trick when she came off the wall towards the sky. She bent her knees and grabbed her board with her right hand and spun her body in midair causing her to completely rotate three full times. She landed a little shakily but rode it out and went right back up the other side of the pipe and threw down one of her routine tricks, then back to the other side again. She put up three more tricks before coming to a stop in a cloud of snow at the bottom of the pipe with her fists in the air above her head. She was jumping up and down before she could even release her bindings. She had just laid down a hell of a run and could be favored to win her third X Games gold medal in a row if she could land that first trick again in competition. She tossed her helmet and goggles in the snow next to her board and watched her friends both lay down sick runs.
Gordy was the first one down. He released his bindings and ran over to her. He threw his arms around her and picked her up into the air even though she was taller than he was. “You just fucking landed a ten-eighty and with a grab! You have balls of steel! That was so fucking sick!”
Falling Snow Page 2
