“Sarah!” Dr. Matthews snapped. “Don’t you dare.”
I walked past him. I walked to the pediatric crash cart.
I pulled out the top drawer and grabbed an emergency glucometer. I went to the medication fridge. My hand hovered over the vials.
I couldn’t just take one. That was theft. That was my license.
But I remembered something. Something Matthews, in his youthful arrogance, had forgotten.
I walked to the supply closet.
In the back, on a high shelf, was a small, insulated box.
It was full of “Emergency Patient Assistance” samples, donated by a pharmaceutical rep two months ago.
They weren’t in the inventory. They weren’t for billing. They were for… well, for exactly this. For emergencies. For compassion.
I grabbed a vial of the fast-acting insulin Lily’s doctor would have prescribed. I grabbed a syringe.
“Sarah, if you walk out that door, I will write you up,” Matthews said, his voice tight with fury.
I turned to him, the vial in my hand. “Go ahead. You do your paperwork, Doctor. I’m going to go save a life.”
I pushed through the ER doors.
Reb was right behind me, so close he was almost stepping on my heels. The rain was cold, a driving, miserable sleet.
There it was.
An old, rust-covered pickup truck, parked diagonally across the ambulance bay. A small American flag, faded and torn, was stuck to the dash.
I ran to the passenger side and pulled the door open.
She was exactly as he’d said.
A little girl, maybe eighty pounds, strapped into a booster seat. Her skin was pale, waxy, and had a greyish-blue tint. Her breathing was fast and shallow. I could smell the ketones from three feet away. She was dying.
“Lily?” I said, rubbing her sternum. “Lily, can you hear me? My name is Sarah. I’m a nurse.”
No response. Her eyes were closed, her body limp.
“Oh, God,” Reb moaned, his hand covering his mouth. “Oh, God, no. We’re too late.”
“We are not too late,” I said, my voice all-business. “Hold the flashlight on your phone. Right here. I need to see.”
My hands were shaking.
Not from fear.
From adrenaline.
I pricked her tiny finger with the glucometer. The machine beeped, a sad, pathetic sound.
HI.
The screen just read HI. Her blood sugar was so high, the machine couldn’t even give a number. It was over 600.
“Okay,” I said, my voice steady. “Reb, I’m going to give her the shot. When she wakes up, she might be confused or sick. But we have to get her inside right after. Understand?”
He just nodded, his eyes fixed on his daughter’s face.
I drew up the dose. I cleaned her small, thin arm. I gave the injection. The needle slid in, a tiny prick, a life-saving act.
And then we waited.
It was the longest three minutes of my life. It was just us, the rain, the truck, the distant sound of a siren, and the shallow, whistling breath of a child.
Reb wasn’t breathing. I’m not sure I was either.
“Come on, sweetie,” I whispered. “Come on, Lily. Come back to us.”
Her breath hitched.
Once.
Twice.
And then, she coughed. A real, wracking cough. Her eyes, a bright, clear blue, flew open. She looked around, confused, her gaze landing on her father.
“Daddy…?” she whispered, her voice hojarse. “I feel sick. My tummy hurts.”
Reb didn’t just cry.
He collapsed.
He folded in on himself, his forehead pressing against the truck’s dashboard, and he wept.
It was the sound of a dam breaking, the sound of a pressure valve releasing, the sound of a man who had just walked back from the edge of the world’s worst cliff.
“I’ve got you, baby,” he choked out, his hand finding hers. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. Daddy’s here. You’re okay.”
I let him have his moment.
Then, I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Reb. We have to go. Now. She needs fluids, and I need to get her on a monitor. We did step one. Now we do step two.”
He nodded, wiping his face with his wet sleeve. He looked at me, his eyes raw. He didn’t have to say thank you. I saw it.
He unbuckled her, scooped her up—all eighty pounds, as if she weighed nothing—and wrapped her in his leather vest. He held her against his chest, shielding her from the rain, and walked back into the ER.
This time, nobody stopped him.
Frank opened the door. The people in the waiting room just watched, their own small miseries forgotten for a second.
Reb walked right past the desk, right past Dr. Matthews—who was, for once, speechless—and followed me into an open trauma bay.
“Get me a pediatric IV kit,” I yelled to another nurse. “And get me a bag of saline. Let’s get her hooked up.”
We worked.
For the next hour, that little girl was the only thing that mattered. Reb never left her side. He just stood in the corner, a giant, dripping sentinel, his knuckles white as he gripped the bedrail, watching her color return.
Dr. Matthews never said a word to me.
He didn’t write me up.
In fact, he came in, looked at Lily’s chart, and quietly added his signature to the orders I had already started. He even added a note: “Patient Assistance protocol initiated.” He was covering for me. Or maybe, just maybe, he was learning.
By 7 AM, when my shift ended, Lily was sleeping peacefully, her blood sugar at a stable 150. Reb was asleep in the chair next to her, his head on the bed, his hand still holding hers.
I clocked out.
I walked to my car in the cold morning light.
I sat in the driver’s seat for ten minutes, too tired to even turn the key. I thought about the vial in my pocket. Oh, yes, I’d forgotten to give it back. I suppose I’d keep it, as a reminder.
I thought about Reb, the hero who had to beg for his daughter’s life. I thought about Lily, a child whose life was balanced on the razor’s edge of a corporation’s profit margin.
I didn’t hear from them for a long time. Life in the ER goes on. The faces change, but the stories stay the same.
Then, three months later, on another chaotic Tuesday, I was at the intake desk. A man walked up, waiting patiently in line.
He was in a clean flannel shirt and jeans.
His beard was trimmed.
He was holding a small, hand-drawn card. I didn’t recognize him at first.
“Excuse me,” he said, his voice quiet, polite. “Is Nurse Sarah working tonight?”
I looked up. It was Reb.
“Reb,” I said, a smile spreading across my face. “How are you? How is Lily?”
“She’s great,” he said, and his own smile was like the sun coming out. “She’s… she’s right over there.”
He pointed to the waiting room.
Lily was sitting in a chair, her feet kicking, drawing in a coloring book. She looked healthy. Pink-cheeked, bright-eyed, and very much alive.
Continue Reading 📘 Part 3 …
