{"id":2149,"date":"2013-09-01T22:34:53","date_gmt":"2013-09-01T22:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=2149"},"modified":"2013-09-01T22:36:07","modified_gmt":"2013-09-01T22:36:07","slug":"a-second-chance-by-carla-j-dow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/a-second-chance-by-carla-j-dow\/","title":{"rendered":"A second chance By Carla J Dow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nightcar\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

A second chance<\/h1>\n

By Carla J Dow<\/p>\n

Blood. Sticky, shiny, wet. Brazen red. I blink and the desperation rises in my chest. I cannot clear the bold scarlet puddle from my eyes, it proceeds like a relentless festering floodwater.<\/p>\n

As an A&E doctor I am used to blood, this is a place where the fragility of life stares you in the face day on day, eyeball to unflinching eyeball, night on night. This is a place where you realise that the human being is no more than an encasement of flesh, bones and blood. No more.<\/p>\n

But tonight is different.<\/p>\n

The ECG machine bleeps piercingly behind me and the nurse moves to its side her blue scrubs rustling past my bare arm, tickling my skin.<\/p>\n

Adrenaline is high as it always is in A&E. Tension bubbles near to boiling point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntracranial pressure increasing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nurse\u2019s voice is smooth like a tumbling cloud of silk over the taut vibrations of anxiety.<\/p>\n

My hand applies pressure on the wound, a defensive gesture in refusal of the confrontation highlighting the vulnerability of life. Warmth seeps through my fingers from the puckered flap of skin rimmed in ruby red. Brazen blood. I feel nothing so desensitised am I to the sight of trauma.<\/p>\n

The frantic business of the A&E department continues around us, it is a place of cliff-hanging limbo forever balanced between life and death, this world and the next, the relief of escape tempting you.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe patient is destabilising.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nurse\u2019s soft voice raises a semi-tone. I hear it. Only the most attuned ear will have detected the slight tinge of reddened panic.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore fluids,\u201d she demands with authority.<\/p>\n

The brazen scarlet blossoms, blooming crimson petals on the crisp white bedsheet like summer strawberries glowing against snowfall. Overwhelming. Suffocating. I know the drill, the routine. A tube is forced into the gargling throat to aid breathing. A needle is stabbed into bone to deliver a shot of adrenaline, the irony lost on us.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going into shock. Clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

My colleague presses the pads onto bare skin directly above the heart, the cold tingles before 1,500 volts of energy pulsates through the body.<\/p>\n

I have seen many lives shaken into resurrection at the charged touch of the defibrillator, giving a second chance at life. Day on day, eyeball to unflinching eyeball, night on night. But I have also seen death refuse to relinquish to the gentle tendrils of reawakening. I know that death is unforgiving.<\/p>\n

I watch and wait to see which way this one will go; this one matters more than the others. This is my second chance.<\/p>\n

The brazen cloud returns, the ruby red petals blinding me to the frantic grasping of the doctors and nurses I have worked alongside day on day, eyeball to unflinching eyeball, night on night. They try their best to hold on to my life, a life that nevertheless slips from their desperate grasp. Another one down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blood. Sticky, shiny, wet. Brazen red. I blink and the desperation rises in my chest. I cannot clear the bold scarlet puddle from my eyes, it proceeds like a relentless festering floodwater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2149"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2153,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions\/2153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}