Gary studied hard in school to be admitted into medical school to become a doctor like his grandfather a generation or two ago. Unfortunately, he was also a great sportsman, holding the national junior 400 metre hurdles record, being opening batsman for his school and was chosen to represent the country's under 18 cricket team as vice-captain, and also was first team and provincial flyhalf in his school's rugby team.
He liked the fame and popularity it brought, and could often be seen with a different beauty from the girl's school on his arm.
But the active social life took a toll on his studies. He knew he had to be in the top 5% of students to be considered for medical studies.
What people didn't know about Gary, was that underneath that popular jock that the rest of the world saw in him, he was a soft, intelligent gentleman that was always unselfishly willing to help those in need.
After failed by point two percent to crack a place in the local medical school, he decided, rather that try to get into medical school again the following year, he would enroll for a B.Cur degree in professional nursing. Afterwards, he would then decide if he still wanted to enroll for MB ChB, as B Cur was already a four year degree in nursing science.
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Six years later and Gary quickly established himself as on top of his game and it is even said that some junior doctors consulted Gary to make sure that their diagnosis and treatment was the correct ones. Gary was fully immersed in his duty as head of the nurses, even at such a young age, and it was late one Saturday night when this story begins.
He was in the middle of a relatively quiet shift in the trauma department of the orthopedic hospital, when they got a call from the ambulance on duty that they were on their way with a badly injured accident victim. Gary sprang into action, calling the night doctor on call to get his butt to the hospital ASAP, while he started to prepare the emergency room for any eventuality.
When he heard the sirens of the ambulance approaching, everything they could need to treat an injured accident victim, was ready and on hand. He even called the emergency surgery room to be on standby should the doctor decide immediate surgery was needed.
The doctor on call was still five minutes out when they wheeled the patient with a drip already affixed to them, inside the trauma room. As it was the only one in the emergency room and the doctor already on his way, he didn't even find it necessary to first do a triage assessment, because the paramedic said it was code orange (very serious and potencially life-threatining).
The ambulancemen lifted the patient onto the examination surface and the junior nurses connected machines monitoring their vital signs.
He only slightly glanced at the face and could see that it was a strunningly beautiful woman even with the side of her face swolen and traces of blood covering her entire body. He could also see that the paramedics fitted a neck brace and splints to both her legs in the ambulance. Even with the emercency splints he noted that her left leg seemed to hang at an acute angle.
The doctor arrived seconds afterwards and the highly trained team did what they are trained to do to stabilise the patient.
After about 90 minutes when the doctor was satisfied that her vitals were relatively stable, he thanked everybody, and the night staff wheeled her to intensive care where they already booked her for x-rays of her spine, neck, ribs and legs.
As Gary has worked night shift for a week, he was off for the next five days and he spent his time cleaning the pool, cutting the lawn, wrote a few new poems (I forgot to say that he was also a closet poet!) and went shopping for a new racquet for the upcoming tennis tournament.
Refreshed after the mini break he had all but forgotten about the young lady on the last night he worked. It is only when he signed in that the senior nurse told him if he knew that he made an impression on the last patient before he clocked off. She was out of ICU in a high care ward but definitely out of danger. The only reason she was not in a normal ward yet, was that injuries to her legs were quite severe and it required multiple surgeries to reset her broken bones.
When he did his rounds later in the morning, he noticed that she had a little smile and a slight blush on her cheeks before she quickly looked away. According to her file, she cracked her L2 vertebrae iun her spine, broke her right tibia, but fractured and crushed her left femur quite severely. In addition, her left foot and anlke were shattered in a thousand opieces it seems. No surgery was needed on her spine and right leg, which already had a new cast on, but she already had surgeries to try to save her left leg and foot.
It was clear that she was going to stay in the hospital for at least a few weeks or even a month or two, before they can think of discharging her for physiotherapy. The doctor quietly confided in Gary that he still isn't sure if her left leg can be saved and if so, if she would ever be able to walk on it again.
Gary noted that she got no visitors as the days went by, and he started to chat to her just so that she doesn't get too lonely. He was pleasantly surprised to find het shy, but quite charming and intelligent conversation. He was surprised to find that she was still single at 23, because she was pretty enough to have hundreds of boyfriends. She also told his about the night she was in the accident. Apparently, she and her abusive boyfriend went to a club that evening. Halfway through the evening, he started to an ex-girlfriend that he saw in the club and rudely told her off when Alison (that was the patient's name) begged him to take her home. He started to get physical with her and she promptly decided that she had enough of his abuse and started to walk home alone.