“Cleo!”

Peter frantically tried to help her, amidst the bedlam but was not able to concentrate. He had seen hundreds of gun shot wounds in his career, he knew what to do, but this was different. This was someone he knew, someone he loved.

She was conscious, barely, but she was not at all orientated. She just stared ahead in shock.

“Cleo!” he yelled again, “talk to me!” He shook her, getting more and more scared with every second his girlfriend was lying there.

“Peter?” She looked at him, eyes half closed, a hundred different emotions evident on her face but one stood out; fear.

“Shhhh... No, don’t try and talk.” He was unbelievably relieved that she was still alive and awake but at the same time, wished she was unconscious so she wouldn’t feel the pain.

“Peter, I love you.”

“Hey! Don’t! You’re going to be fine.” He struggled to hold back tears. “You’ll be OK.”

He tried to reassure her but he was far from convinced himself. She had been shot in the abdomen and Peter was having trouble slowing down the rapid flow of blood.

“Get a gurney!” he shouted to anyone who was listening. “Now!”

* * *

“Help!” Abby called out from beside Carter. There was no response, although she didn’t really expect anyone to hear her over the shouts and screams that filled the air. But she had to try. All her thoughts and actions seemed to blur together and all she could seem to focus on was all he blood. The blood pouring out of her best friend’s chest.

She battled with her emotions, unsure whether to leave Carter and go for help, or stay and keep pressure on the wound. She didn’t know which to do. All her years of medical training were forgotten and the emotion of the whole situation swallowed her whole. Abby shook her head and snapped back to reality. If she left him, he could loose a lot more blood but if she didn’t get help, he would surely die.

She stood up and rushed to the door.

* * *

“Dr. Weaver!”

Kerry stood up from behind the admit desk, sheltered from the attack and saw Chen call for her from down the hallway. She had blood all over her lab coat but couldn’t tell if it belonged to her, or the child she was crouched over. Kerry ran over to her, pushing through the panicked crowd of people that were desperately pushing past each other, desperate to get to the exit and to safety.

“Jing-Mei? Are you OK?” But she didn’t need to have an answer to that. The grimaced look of pain on her face and her bloody hand clutching her shoulder told her all she needed to know.

“I’m fine” she replied, “help the girl.”

Kerry leant over the child and checked all her vital signs. There was a pulse. Barely noticeable, but she was still alive and appeared to be breathing.

“Dr. Chen, get a gurney!”

“Aaaaaaaagh!” Chen screamed in pain as she tried to move, “I don’t think I can stand.”

Kerry looked around and saw Abby come into the doorway of the suture room. “Abby, come and help!”

Abby had the same frightened look on her face that Kerry imagined she did at the same moment. “I... I can’t” the nurse replied in a quiet, shaky voice, “Carter’s been shot too.”

* * *

“Sir! Sir, can you hear me?” Chuny yelled at the unconscious man on the floor. She got no reply. The bullet had ripped through his shoulder and there was blood spurting from his neck quicker than Chuny could stop it. “Dave!” she called down the hall, “we need to get him into trauma!”

“Move!” Dr. Malucci yelled at a crowd of people pushing past as he wheeled the gurney into the trauma room. He addressed Chuny and another couple of nurses who had joined him in the room. “On my count, 1, 2, 3.”

They slid the man quickly on to the table. “Large GSW to the neck. He’s not breathing, I’ll have to inturbate him.”

He grabbed the tube and slid it down the man’s throat with great difficulty. There was too much blood. “Give him 300 cc’s of Saline and...”

The air was suddenly filled with the long, continuous beep, which was every doctor’s worst nightmare.

“He’s in V-Tach! Start compressions.”

“BP’s falling!”

“V-Fib!”

“Ok, charging 360! Clear!”

“No output!”

“Charge again! Clear!”

“Still nothing!”

“Push some atropine and charge again! Come on!”

“Charging!”

“Clear!”

“No change.”

“Again?”

“Yeah, come on!”

“Dammit! Asystole”

“Starting compressions! Oh man, don’t give up!”

***

“Cleo! Stay with me!” Peter kept talking to her as she was lifted onto a gurney. “Come on, don’t give up!”

His jacket was completely soaked through with blood. He had been using it to try and stop the blood flow but it was completely saturated and the gush of blood had not slowed. She lost consciousness and Peter whacked the side of the desk in frustration.

“Dammit! Come on people! Trauma! Now!”