The gift of death

It was a Friday night, I was off of work at 1 in the morning. Please god no more emergency through that door, I thought to myself. I was exhausted being the Chief of Trauma surgery in the 1# Trauma hospital in the world, John Hopkins. It’s Christmas I just want to be with my kids when they wake up in the morning and my husband. Please God let this be the year I get home in time to them, I thought to myself.

The clock was at 12:43 a.m, just a few more minutes and I would be on my way home. I went to my office to get my things, I checked my phone and I saw I had a message from Jason, he had just put the kids to bed. I smiled, then the hospital alarm went off. I dropped my phone and went outside to see what was going on.

“Doctor its a code black,” said the nurse.

“A code black, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

I ran all the way to the front of the emergency entrance and I paged all of my residents. It was raining very heavily, the ambulance came followed by a bunch of police cars.

One of the residents asked, “What’s a code black?”

I told him it was going to be a long night. The ambulance doors rushed open.

I asked, “What do we got?”

One of the cops replied, “26-year-old male, complaining of stomach pain, and open head wounds”.

Let’s take him to room 3 and take the scans, I said.

He seemed young, but they had him cuffed from the ankles and the hands and was accompanied by four policemen. I stayed outside to get information from the other guards. The guard told me he couldn’t tell me any information about why he was in prison but he had gotten into a fight with someone and he got really hurt.

The scans came back and there was something that looked like a knife through his spine and he was bleeding from his brain. We took him into surgery and as I went to go scrub in I began to think about a lot. I thought about the rain outside and the time. I thought about my husband and kids. As I stared at this criminals body being put under anesthesia and I wonder what crime could he have committed, he was so young, at 26 I was at Med school and pregnant with my first kid and four years later here I was about to miss my third Christmas with my family saving the life of a criminal.

The surgery went well I finished around 4:28 a.m. and I stayed to monitor him. The knife in his spine was made out of concrete, he must have carved from the prison to use as a weapon possibly for protection but illegal. The policemen took turns as guards in his room. He had finally woken up around 6 in the morning. The first thing he did was giggle.

“Mr. Bran we have performed some surgery on you but everything went well, you will keep you for observation for a few days and then you will be free to go’’, I said.

It was just me and him in the room and the guards outside of the room, I went to the exam his eyes.

“Can you follow my finger?” I said and he followed them.

“This place is prettier than my cell’’ he laughed,“ can I get a room with a window? I miss the outside.”

I didn’t respond.

“So the silent treatment.”, he said.

He laughed, “Don’t you want to know what I did to get the death sentence”, I stayed silent, “What’s a guy gotta do to get some conversation?”

One of the officers told him to shut up. I went to my office and saw the missed calls from my husband, it was 9:23 a.m by now and I called back.

“Hey I am sorry I got a last-minute trama, and I don’t know what time I’ll be home. ” I said

“Its okay babe, I understand but what do I tell the girls?” he asked.

I felt a knot in my throat like I was about to cry.

“I don’t know anymore, just tell them I’ll be home soon, love you”, I said and hung up.

Mr. Bran began to code, I rushed to his room.

“What happened? He was fine when I left”, I said

“ I don’t know, he just started coding,” the nurse said, “his heart rate is dropping”.

I saw he pulled out his IV’s and he had banged his head on the roof of the bed.

“Did he do this on purpose ?”, I asked the nurse.

“Mr. Bran I am going to take you up to surgery to fix the open wound”

“Please just let me go, let me die here.”, he said.

Absolutely not, I thought to myself and we took him and fixed his wound. Then he went back to the room and he was conscious again.

“You should’ve let me die,” he said.

“Mr. Bran you are a criminal and I am a doctor, I am going to keep you alive so that you can leave and go back to my family”, I said.

“I had a family,’’ he said, “but I killed them, that was the crime…I know most people will think I am crazy for it but they don’t understand, killer aren’t born, they are made”

What kind of sick person kills his family I thought to myself. I began to walk out the door.

He raised his voice a little louder, “Wait… Don’t you wanna know why? I turned around and I responded “No”.

He went on to tell me the story anyway.

“My father was an abuser and my mother did drugs, lean and pills for breakfast. One day, my dad comes home super drunk with an unconscious woman and he locked the bedroom door. I told him to stop, he went on to grab me, throw me outside and tied me up the fence. He grabbed his gun and shot me in the leg. I was able to free myself eventually, I was angry so I grabbed his gun and went to kill him and the witness, my mom.”, he said, “the unconscious women survived though, they took her to the hospital after.”

I went to check his leg for a scar, it was there. For a moment I thought about my childhood, I didn’t have it easy but I didn’t murderer anyone for it. I felt sympathy for him but he was a criminal, he had no one and he was young. I was the type of person who felt bad for the serial killers.

“My death date is sometime next year, I get to choose how I want to die. Electrocution or Lethal injection.”. He said.

I cried and I felt guilty about it. It was 1 in the afternoon, I’ve had no sleep and I was spending my Christmas with a murder. I swiped away my tears.

“Mr…Bran, I need you to take care of your wound, you have only the bandage wrap protecting your scalp so any other hit on your head and the damage will be critical…do you…understand?”

“Yes, doctor… I understand completely” he said.“Merry Christmas”.

I walked out the door. I told the nurses to continue to monitor him every 20 minutes but that he was good, which was true.

Finally, I was on my way home. I couldn’t wait to see my husband and my kids, I had all their gifts in the car, I couldn’t wait to drink eggnog and sing songs and watch movies until the kids fell asleep. It was 6 p.m now and I got a call from my office and they left a voicemail.

“Doctor Percy your patient Edward Bran has been declared dead, he smashed his head against the bed crate, we could not resuscitate”.

I sat in my car for a moment. My husband came out and got in and he asked what was wrong.

“You married a psychopath workaholic of a wife.”, I said. He laughed, “No I married the mother of our beautiful children”, I saw my kids in matching onesies waiting by the door and I hopped out of the car and they ran towards me.

In unison, they said, “Merry Christmas mom, we love you!”

What a crazy day it was I thought to myself.

“I love you too girls”