UNPSYCHIC (Season break)

Sixty-five million people die each year in the world. That is 178,000 each day, 7,425 each hour, and 120 each minute. But why was no one dying in this part of town?

Wait, that came out heartless. But hear me out.

For the last week I have been assigned the night shift at a small government hospital as a medical volunteer, it has been as still as a graveyard, with only the occasional emergency check-ups from elderlies living near the vicinity and minor injuries from the local farmers getting an early head-start before sunlight hit the quaint village. With the small yet decent hospital situated in a rural area surrounded by cropland and where only several hundred or so people resided, it wasn't surprising that the emergency rate in this part of town barely scratched the minimum number of the main hospital located in the city proper.

Believing tonight was no exception, I fought the urge to yawn as I continued my task of encoding a mountain of documents into their outdated computer. It was a Friday night, and the emergency room had been quiet and stagnant as ever since I clocked in at seven that evening. The low hum of the ceiling fans and my fingers typing on the keyboard filled in the void. When I first applied for the volunteering post, I had to admit, I was expecting to be at the heart of the action that kept me on my toes like on those medical dramas on TV (Grey's Anatomy FTW!). But alas, my high expectations were met with disappointment, and I was shipped off in the middle of nowhere.

Just as I was about to knock back my second cup of instant coffee, the double-doors of the ER swung open and two men donned in black caps, white shirts and black vests--barangay public safety officers--carried someone and from my vantage point at the corner of the nurse's station, was a young woman, her body covered with muck and blood.

"What happened?" This question came from the head triage nurse, Linda, as she emerged from the nurse's station. Her salt and pepper hair was disheveled while her green scrubs, wrinkled from doing a double-shift due to the lack of staffing. But she had obviously hoped to have a mellow evening, with her feet previously propped up the desk as she intently watched a K-drama series about some haunted hotel, on her smartphone before the disruption.

"There was an accident. A couple in a car almost ran her over and hit a tree. They're coming in a separate vehicle." The bruly barangay officer reported as he and his companion followed Linda in hurried strides as she led them to one of the four available beds in the ward. Funding in this part of town was scarce for any appropriate EMTs and ambulances to transport patients, and would only resort to the barangay hall's heavily battered, commercial L300 vehicle as an alternative.

"Almost ran her over? Are you sure they didn't do this to her?" Linda gestured at the evident injuries found on the girl's body.

"According to the driver, she suddenly sprung in the middle of the road which caused him to swerve the car and hit a tree." The younger officer supplied as they gingerly placed the girl on the bed.

"Jesus, poor girl looks like she went to hell and back again." Linda tsked as she fished a penlight from her pocket, and flashed it to assess the patient's pupillary reaction. The nurse's sharp gaze didn't miss out on any small detail as she did a quick visual assessment on the patient.

"Looks like she lost a lot of blood from all the laceration marks on her body. Possible mild concussion." She continued her evaluation out loud, more for the benefit of the two officers present than for her own. She gently angled the patient's chin until the obvious head trauma at the right side of her temple was evident, smearing the side of her face with crimson red.

The emergency doors swung open once more and two other men carrying a stretcher scurried in. Although the clothes of the older woman laying on it were clean from the dirt and muck unlike the first patient, the bloody head trauma was clearly visible as the shattered glass that clung to her flesh and clothes.

"Doc, her pulse is weak." One of the officers exclaimed as they placed the second patient to occupy the adjacent bed.

Linda cursed, the predicament apparent in front of her. "Someone find Simon and Val from whatever hell hole they're at," she ordered. Her face turned into a deep shade of red, nostrils flaring.

"I can't believe they chose tonight of all nights to dilly dally. Why those unpassionate, selfish…" she muttered the rest of her vile choices of adjectives on the supposed-to-be secret lovers. "I can't work on two patients at once!"

"I'm on it." I said, my feet practically bounced from the urgency that seemed to awaken the ER from its dormancy. Picking up the receiver from its cradle, the hospital's old paging system still had the job done.

"Temp, I need you to come here." Linda jerked her head at me. Apparently she had given all volunteers that moniker and wouldn't bother to call anyone by name since the program would only provide a week's worth of volunteering work for aspiring medical practitioners such as myself. The gist of the program was to expose pre-med students on the lay of the land of their chosen field. As a volunteer, I have yet to be assigned assisting the triage nurses, only given clerical work in the meantime.

But still, I obliged and rushed to her side as the first two officers exited.

"You are a nursing student, correct?"

"Second year." I gulped to moisten my dry throat. My eyes glued to the unconscious patient.

"Damn government and their programs." She muttered, exhaling a deep breath. "Well, better than nothing. Since we're stretched for manpower this evening, I need you to check her vitals first. I'll be back in a minute. Heard?"

Without waiting for an answer, she drew the curtain closed around the bed to give us some privacy as she attended the tumult that surrounded the other bed. From the sound of it, the woman's boyfriend had just arrived and was in hysterics, adding to the chaos.

Trying to block out the distractions, I focused on the girl; dirt and mud matted her hair and body, while a deep slice down the side of her cheek was the only injury that tainted her face. Her eyes remained closed yet lashes fluttered at each struggling breath. There was also no mistaking the dark red stains that heavily coated her shirt and jeans. Regardless of her state, I could tell she was around my age or less.

What happened to you?

As though in response to my internal question, her eyes flashed open, her gaze directly at me. Looking at me. Wisps of gold against brown tinted her eyes. Just as I was held captivated, she grabbed my hand with her own and squeezed. Hard. The sudden sting caught me by surprise and before I could pull my hand away, her grip loosened until it went limp. Her eyes rolled back until pure white replaced the black orbs of her irises.

Her body began to convulse.

Panic surged through my veins. "Doc, she's in hypovolemic shock!" But not for long. After five seconds, her whole body became still. With my heart beating hard against my ribs, two fumbling fingers against the artery vein on her neck confirmed that she had no pulse.

"Code blue! Code blue! I-I need a crash cart here!"

Knowing that time was of the essence and was slowly being deprived from her, I positioned both palms of my hands at the center of her chest and began doing compressions. After thirty pumps, I adjusted her chin and pinched her nose before connecting my mouth to hers and breathed out uncompromised oxygen to her system. The pandemonium around me muted, two words kept echoing in his head at every pump; chest compressions, chest compressions, chest compressions.

A year of medical school didn't quite prepare me for this.

I didn't know how long I had been doing compressions on her. Exhaling rescue breaths after rescue breaths. Clinging into that thread of hope that proper help will soon come to relieve me. Before it was too late. At that moment, I shared Dr. Linda's resentment on the lack of funding, staffing or equipment for provincial hospitals such as this, needing to only share one crash cart between four flatlining patients. But as the curtain was drawn and the two unaccounted nurses finally appeared with the crash cart, the girl finally gasped for air and coughed as though having been submerged in water, only to resurface after being under for several minutes. Her eyes fluttered open in a daze, unfocused on her surroundings.

"Out of the way, Temp." Simon shoved me aside.

With my own uneven breathing, I sagged against a wall and slid onto the floor. I watched them momentarily as they hooked her up to an IV line and began taking her vitals. Looking down at my fists, they trembled uncontrollably, unable to straighten from the numbness of doing the compressions. Yet a stinging pain still lingered on my right hand she had gripped on.

Uncurling my fingers, what actually caused the pain was a small piece of metal, the sharp edges buried into my flesh until it bled. Plucking it out, it was actually a severed bottom half of a metal dog tag and at a closer inspection, had some sort of symbol on it. She must have transferred it to me.

"You did good for a temp." Linda's words had me ungluing my eyes from the metal to look at her. “What’s your name, kid?’

With her words finally hitting me, I released an exhilarating breath and rested my head against the flat surface of the wall. A small grin arched my lips.

“It’s Dominic, ma’am. Dominic Macaraeg.”

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A/N: Don’t forget to vote if you liked the chapter so far! And please don’t be a silent reader and comment your thoughts! - J