The
doors to the emergency area swung open and someone shouted out, "I need some
help out here."
Pat
wrapped his stethoscope around his neck and took off running. Fire fighter
Paul Rafferty was walking in with a man in his arms. Pat grabbed a gurney and
pulled it over. "What happened?"
Raff
carefully lowered the man down onto the gurney and then stepped back so Pat
could start checking his vitals. "We were working that three car pileup on the
pass and found this guy in the trunk of one of the cars. The ambulances had
already left so the chief just had me drive him in. We figured it would be
quicker than calling for another ambulance."
Pat's jaw dropped as he glanced up. "He was in the trunk?"
Raff
nodded.
"Shit!"
"Is
he going to make it?" Raff asked. "I tried to get here as quickly as I could,
but there's a lot of snow up there."
"There's snow on the pass?" If so, it had come early this year. They usually
didn't get snow on the pass until around Thanksgiving.
"Yeah."
"We
were thinking that three car pileup might have been a black ice incident, but
snow makes much more sense."
Pat
went back to checking the patient. The guy had a few bruises on his face, a
bump on the back of his head, and abrasions on his wrists. Pat's brow
flickered with unease when he saw the injuries. It looked as if the guy had
been pretty well worked over.
"Was
he tied up?" he asked.
"Yeah." Raff nodded. "His hands were tied behind his back with duct tape. The
chief cut it off before we put him in my truck. He's keeping it for the
sheriff."
Pat
was pretty sure this guy had been a kidnap victim, which meant the sheriff
would be interested in more than just the duct tape.
"Okay, I'm going to get him in back and have DB take a look at him."
"I
need to get back to the scene, but can you let me know how he's doing?"
Pat
smiled as he nodded. "I'll let you know just as soon as DB gives me a
diagnosis."
"I'd
appreciate it."
Pat
turned and started wheeling the patient through the double doors and then to
one of the exam rooms. "Linda, can you page DB? We have another patient from
that car crash up on the pass."
"Sure will," the other nurse replied.
A
moment later, the intercom sounded, paging Dr. Berkley.
Pat
started taking vitals on the patient. DB would want to know as much as
possible when he walked in. Pat also wanted to make sure everything was
documented for the sheriff. If this was a kidnapping, they'd need all the
evidence they could get.
"Linda," he called out. "Get me some evidence bags."
The
patient's clothes would need to be cut off. Pat planned to put everything in
the evidence bags. They were slightly different than the regular bags they
used for patient's effects. Evidence bags had a seal on them and a place for
the nurse in charge of the patient to sign their name. It kept a record of the
chain of evidence in case there was a criminal case.
Pat
was pretty sure that was going to happen here.
He
lifted the bottom of guy's black cotton shirt and then winced when he found
more bruising. It didn't look as if there was internal bleeding, but looks
could be deceiving. No matter what, his ribs were going to be sore for awhile.
He reached for a pair of scissors so he could cut the shirt off.
Pat
jumped and let out a very unmanly squeak when his wrist was grabbed. The
patient was awake and staring right at him through one good eye and one eye so
swollen Pat could barely tell it was brown.
"Get
me out of here," the guy whispered.
"My
name is Pat. I'm a nurse. You're in a hospital," Pat said as he tried to pull
the man's tight grip off his wrist. "You're safe now."
"Not
safe." The man groaned and stiffened for just a moment, his head arching back.
"Need out of here. Not safe."
The
guy was obviously still terrified, and Pat couldn't blame him. He'd be
terrified if he had been kidnapped, too. "Can you tell me your name?"
"Special Agent Elam Darcy. I'm FBI."
Well, damn.
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