(Flashback) The Wrong Call

[Orion Michaels]

Orion, Day of Spring 49, 506 AV There’s so much blood…. Orion couldn’t have been prepared for today. Even the most experienced physicians could struggle with it, but it was something that was just a part of the job. All the knowledge Orion had gained under his father’s watchful eye would seem to go missing at the worst of times. Stress begets more stress which causes mistakes. Mistakes with people’s health were unacceptable, so stress management was a must. Before anything had even happened, an immense pressure had been placed on the budding doctor. ”Orion, today I’m going to have you take charge. If we have a patient come in, the choices are yours on examination, on treatment. You are making the call. You have to be able to tell others what to do if it’s an intense situation. Command their attention and they will obey.” The elder Michaels looked his son over, with a frown. “I’m fully aware it goes against your nature, but you have the tremendous honor of following in my footsteps. You will learn to take control. You must. Innocent lives depend on you doing your job." Orion didn’t feel ready to take command, ready to be the focal point. It was much easier to be the secondary or even tertiary voice, reacting to commands. What if the worst happened and there was a life threatening situation? This is the day he would be tested, and the day he would learn about the ups and downs of his decided profession. One thing the young man was never truly ready for was dealing with children. A young life, a fragile one, it was so easy to lose. Children and the elderly were the toughest to work with, but at least the elderly had lived their full lives. To watch a life be snuffed out before it’d truly began? It made his stomach twist to think about it. The weight on his heart was tremendous, then, when a young boy of no older than 8 was brought in, covered in bright red, his mother screaming hysterically. He could feel his vision narrow and his senses numb. Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion. On the edge of his sight stood his father, arms crossed, his face stern with judgment. A simple nod from him got Orion moving. “Umm…okay, what happened?” He asked the woman, taking the boy from her. His voice was shaky and lacking of confidence. I'm not ready for this! Unable to focus on her words, all he heard were the shrieks and sobs of a woman watching that which was most precious to her fade. The bleeding was severe, the boy was drenched, and his mother looked just as bad, her child's blood covering the woman as she frantically transported her pride and joy. There was a deep laceration to the upper inner right thigh. That wasn’t good news. It got the artery, I’m sure of it. The blood was almost a yellowish color, an indication of extreme oxygenation. Setting the boy on the table, he felt his throat tighten. The bleeding was really bad. What if he lost him? What if this boy couldn't be saved? The blood pouring from the child would stain his hands long after he washed them of it. He motioned to his medical bag and yelled to one of the assistants. “Get me gauze and bandages! We’ve gotta stop this bleeding.” The young boy’s face was streaked with tears as he faded in and out of consciousness. Orion’s breathing was shallow, his emotions barely contained. “I won’t lose him….Give me those petching materials!” He ripped them from the assistant’s hands. The child was losing blood rapidly, escaping from his leg in spurts. He pushed the gauze onto the wound, trying to keep pressure on the injury. The pure white materials turned crimson red in but an instant, doing next to nothing to slow the bleeding. The young boy moaned in pain as Orion's worst fears were coming to fruition.

[Orion Michaels]

Orion, Day of Spring 49, 506 AV Stop. Stop. Stop! STOP! His mind screamed at the bleeding, begging, pleading, and demanding that this child live. His teeth were grit tightly together, matching the pressure he placed on the wounded leg. “E-elevate the leg,” he meekly ordered the assistant. His father was watching him, judging his every move. It was the last thing he really needed at the time, but little could be done. His father had no intention of stepping in and saving this boy. It was all on him. Orion very nearly shuddered at that thought. The pressure was mounting. The assistant had raised the boys leg, but just as his first move had proven, there were no results. He was still aggressively hemorrhaging blood, and the child was becoming less and less responsive. Orion quickly wiped a hand on his shirt, placing his index and middle finger at the boy’s neck, only to find a weak pulse that was rapidly disappearing. He was quickly running out of options, but more seriously, he was running out of time. The boy’s skin was clammy; the blood flow was reaching critical lows. “I’m going to put pressure directly on the artery!” There was no other way. “You…hold the gauze.” As the assistant took over trying to contain the blood loss, Orion took a risk by pushing his hand into the wound, reaching for the artery itself. The boy moaned quietly, but at this point Orion’s senses were all but gone. He couldn’t feel to get the artery, He was causing further damage, and nothing was getting better. The mother’s screaming. His father’s judging. The boy’s bleeding. None of it. “WHY WON’T YOU STOP?” Tears began to well in Orion’s eyes as he neared his breaking point. It wasn’t working. The assistant looked over him and said something, but it came in as white noise to Orion. “What…tourniquet? But that’s …giving up on his leg?” He continued searching frantically for the femoral. The boy was fully unresponsive. “But we can save him…I can save him…If I just…I just…” he faded off, a lost look on his face until his father’s booming voice brought him back. ”MAKE THE CALL, ORION!”

[Orion Michaels]

Orion, Day of Spring 49, 506 AV Startled, Orion looked up at his father. He held an unusual look of anger. His father never yelled. He never showed emotion. Nothing was worth getting worked up over. It just was. Things just happened. It was just a fact. To hear him yell, it wasn’t something Orion was accustomed to. He sat there, his hand in the boy’s leg. He shook his head and declared, “No. No tourniqate. I can save him. I can save his leg! It’ll be okay.” Right? But Orion was wrong. It wouldn’t matter how much pressure he put, how high he elevated the leg. It didn’t matter what he did. Even after the boy passed on, after his mother collapsed the ground in tears of pure agony at her loss, Orion would try and resuscitate the boy, but it was all for naught. Tears flowed from his eyes as he futilely attempted mouth to mouth, knowing fully it wouldn’t do a thing. His legs were wobbly and his heart weak. He had failed. “He’s…gone..” Orion’s lower lip quivered, in sadness, in exhaustion, in rage. He had let everyone down. He was supposed to be a doctor. He was supposed to be in charge, and this is how it ended. Orion rushed from the room and fell to the ground on his knees. He brought his hands up to his head, marking his face with the boy’s blood as he held back sobs. This boy was dead and he didn’t stop it from happening. People should trust a physician. But no one should trust him. His tears and sweat mixed with the blood to leave lines of red streaming down his face, and from his face to the ground. "The ground's where I belong." He managed through a sob. This couldn't be happening. Surely it's just a nightmare?

[Orion Michaels]

Orion, Day of Spring 49, 506 AV "Get up off the ground, Orion. You're a man, stop acting otherwise." His father's words, comforting as always. He wiped his eyes and looked up. "It's always tough having someone die in front of you like that. It happens, more than I'd like to admit. Medicine, it's a rough field. You dealt with something every physician will go through at some point, so I offer my condolences." But... Orion silently spoke. "But you never gave that boy a chance." He could feel his chest tighten. Never gave him a chance? It didn't seem possible. I spent an eternity on him! I'm covered in his blood. How did I never give him a chance! Orion screamed inside his mind. Nothing was right about this. "What...what are you talking about?" His father stood over him, arms crossed. Looking down at his son, he shook his head. "Simple. You were slow, indecisive. and you made the wrong call. You can't freeze. You can't be introspective. And you absolutely cannot worry about what happens if you fail. You'll eat yourself alive. However, you should have applied the tourniquet." Orion's eyes widened. "But...But his leg, it-" "Is of little use when he is dead." His father's eyes regarded him coolly. Orion knew he was correct. There was so much blood loss when the boy arrived, there was little hope to begin with. And his choice only served to destroy that little hope. "The woman...is she..?" "Devastated? Utterly." He could only watch as his father turned and left him alone to deal with his emotions. He felt cold. Alone. A life had slipped through his fingers, as hard as he tried to hold onto it. He pounded the bottom of his fist against the floor as a final, single tear was shed and feld to the ground. "This won't ever get easier, will it?"

[Orion Michaels]

Orion, Day of Spring 49, 506 AV Orion slowly gathered himself, trying to put the pieces back together. It had just happened, but it was all just a blur. His eyes hurt, his hands were covered, and he was weak to his very soul, but he knew there was still something left to be done. Sighing, he stood. The child's mother. How could face her? There was no option, but still.. He pushed himself up and let out a long shuddering breath. His hands were covered in blood still. His clothing was soaked with it. And it felt as though his spirit was, too. The ground would need cleaned, too. It was littered with dark red hand prints and marks where he'd fallen. He was certain he would still see them long after they were cleaned. He straightened his clothing, pointless as that may have been, and returned to the room where the boy's mother was sitting. Orion bit his bottom lip as she came into view. There were no tears, no emotion, no anything. She just sat. Her eyes are so...empty.. He looked around the room before proceeding to her. The scene was horrible. The table, the floor around it, all crimson. The boy had been covered with a sheet, but even it took on an ever increasing red. He nearly choked up and had to look away from the boy. Get your emotions under control, Orion. Come on! The woman stared at Orion as he approached her. It made him tense and sent a small shiver down his spine. He took a deep breath and began to speak before the woman cut him off. "I don't want to hear it!" She hissed at him, her fists in balls. "Not from you. Not from anyone! You let my boy die. It's your fault. All your fault!" Orion couldn't argue with her. He felt the same way, after all. "Ma'am, I can't even imagine wh-""I know you can't." Her words were dripping with venom. "So don't pretend like you do. Just, don't. Maybe when you lose someone more important to you than anything. Maybe when you lose someone well before their time. You had a job to do. This is your job. Not to comfort me. Just.....just let me be. Go away. Go to the back room again. Let me be with my son while I can." How do I have any chance to comfort this woman when my own wounds still bleed so? He slowly nodded to her words. "I'll never forget this, miss. I promise you I'll never forget your boy." He turned and made his way out of her sight. It was difficult work for Orion. He didn't know how to break bad news, he didn't know how to deal with death. He really didn't know how to deal with people, in truth, the young doctor feared he never would be able to. He was learning quickly, though, that emotional wounds couldn't be treated with pure alcohol and stitches.

[Templar]

Orion: Leadership: 1 – Medicine: 4 Lore: Trauma of losing a patient – Freezing up during surgery – Better A cripple than dead - Making the Wrong Call - Knowing you made the wrong call. Additional notes: This was a great thread. You really managed to write a dramatic scene and you made me feel sorry for the woman and her boy. – If you think I overlooked something, feel free to PM me.