A true story about Paul, a registered nurse, working in the Level 1 Trauma ER of the inner city hospital in Charleston, WV. He worked the 3 in the afternoon shift which sometimes turned into a double shift that had him leaving the ER at 7:30 a.m. and rushing off to class in a near-by college where he was taking classes to get into a veterinary school.
The shift provided the adrenaline he so thrived on. When the sun went down, the amount and severity of the trauma patients that presented in the ER both increased. It may have been a rough shift that many avoided, but Paul seemed to do better as the stress level and trauma increased. Patients ranging from gunshot wounds to the utterly psychotic presented themselves in many times rare form to the doors of the ER. Whether that is by ambulance or in the back of a pickup truck, they came by the groves some nights. Did the full moon have anything to do with it? Did Fridays being paydays and partying to excess have anything to do with it? It could have been partly a combination of all three.
Many of the most interesting nights were spent triaging patients that were ambulatory in their decision to be treated in the ER. Paul wasn't ever a fan of psychiatry rotations in school or at work, but he garnered many valuable lessons in studying the people that were separated from him in the waiting room by just the walls of the triage desk and it's small cubicle. There was the transvestite that would throw himself in front of vehicles and ambulances acting out seizure like activity. As well as the patient who was left alone for a weekend by his family and during that time decided to blow the front of his skull off while remaining seated on the couch watching cartoons. It was an extra-ordinary job, but one Paul found unfathomably different and on some nights quite entertaining with an EMS impersonator dancing up and down the halls that was featured on national television.
It was most definitely not for the faint of heart, but Paul liked it and it passed the time as well as paid the bills, until he could get into vet school. Not to mention the romance he struck up with Kelly a trauma surgery resident. Would their relationship survive the rigors of the ER, school, her grueling schedule and the tumultuous times that they both knew lay ahead if Paul made it into vet school. He had been dreaming and aspiring to achieve the lofty goal he had set when he was still in nursing school. It wouldn't be easy by any means, but true love endures and dreams do come true. So will both of them happen? Will one of them happen? While the other is lost to all eternity? Find out and start reading the first book of this captivating series.
All of the trauma stories are true but the names of patients were changed to protect the innocent and insane.
