Monday, 02 May 2011

• Book Promo: Hyphema by Chelle Cordero

  Hyphema: Bleeding in the eye caused by trauma…
  
  Matt Garratti, a paramedic from New York, moves his wife and son to North Carolina to work at his dream job as a flight medic. Pakistani born Sudah, his wife, receives frosty stares and insensitive comments from their new neighbors.
  
  Before long, Matt wonders if he is pursuing his dream or bringing his family into a nightmare from which they may never wake. 

  

  Buy Links
  Kindle from Amazon (http://amzn.to/fEYUR7) 
  Smashwords for multiple e-book formats (http://bit.ly/epqtjy) 

  (excerpt)

  By the time they reached the hospital, Matt managed to stabilize his patient’s breathing and her vitals were improving. She was still unconscious and would require immediate surgery to keep everything on track. Even though he knew it was futile, he still dressed the boy’s wounds and pumped fluids through an IV. If the mother was aware of anything, she had to know that they tried to save her child. He had Jimmy continue CPR until the doctor in the ER told him to stop. The boy was pronounced as his mom was being rolled into surgery.

  Tony and Matt were both somber as Matt forced himself to finish the paperwork he had to turn in. Losing any patient was rough–losing a little kid was torture. Jimmy leaned against the wall, his arms crossed in front of him, glaring at Matt. Matt ignored him. He figured that the young man would need to deal with the call in his own way. If he needed to talk, Matt would be there. Tony told Matt he’d be at the chopper waiting for him to finish up and left.

  “Where’s my son?” A middle aged man in a suit and tie was pounding on the nurse’s station for answers. “The police called and said my son was brought in. Where is he?”

  “Let me get a doctor to speak to you.” The nurse pushed a button on the intercom.

  “Where is he?” The man bellowed. “Where is Jeremy?”

  Matt turned back to his paperwork. He didn’t want to witness the devastation the father was facing when he learned his child was dead. Even though he tried not to, he kept picturing his own little boy.

  “Mr. Adams?” One of the doctors came hurrying over. “Let’s go into the next room…”

  “Talk to me here dammit!”

  The doctor took a deep breath and kept his voice even. “Your wife is in surg…”

  “Where is my son?” He grabbed the doctor’s white jacket. A security guard started to approach until the doctor waved him off.

  The doctor calmly disengaged himself from Adam’s grasp. “I’m sorry sir. We did everything we could for your son.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “We couldn’t save him. I’m sorry sir…”

  Adams shuddered. “Oh my God. He wasn’t supposed to be in that car.” His voice sounded torn. “Where is his body?”

  “I can arrange for you to see him shortly.” The doctor was trying to be compassionate. “Your wife should be out of surgery soon. She doesn’t know yet. She’ll need…”

  “He wasn’t supposed to be with her today.” Adams sobbed. “Her sister was supposed to have picked him up.”

  Matt’s gut twisted.

  “Why wasn’t he with her sister?” Adams covered his eyes and wept.

  The doctor led the grieving man to a chair down the hallway.

  Matt snapped the pen he was writing with. He muttered a curse under his breath and threw the broken pieces into a wastebasket behind the desk. Grabbing another stick pen from his belt, he tried to concentrate on the continuation form in front of him.

  Jimmy snickered. “Why are you so upset? That’s the kid you didn’t give a damn about.”

  “What?” Matt was careful to keep his voice low.

  “What did you think it was some kind of a joke to keep me busy with a kid you had no intention of really helping?” Jimmy approached Matt. “Yeah, you resented the fact that I was riding along and you didn’t want to bother with the kid, so you pawned him off on me.”

  “Shut up.” Matt whispered loudly enough for Jimmy to hear him. “The boy bled out before we got there. He was dead, his heart had stopped. There was really nothing we could do for the kid. His mother was alive but she needed help, serious help. And she also needed to know that we were trying to save her son, she had to know if there had been any chance at all...”

  “You just said he was dead, so why were you wasting my time?”

  Sometimes after a patient’s heart stops and the patient is clinically dead, he can still be resuscitated with compressions or drugs. Sometimes though the injuries are too extensive and the damage is too great. Matt knew all of the hard facts. He didn’t want to start preaching to this pain in the ass. “His body was still warm, I wasn’t about to pronounce. I had you there. If the kid had any chance, your training was enough. The woman needed more advanced interventions. I let you take care of the kid so that I could pay attention to the mom.” Matt counted silently while he turned to face Jimmy. “Look Jim, patient care is sometimes doing things just for comfort. That’s what I had you doing. There wasn’t anything else we could do.”

  “Then why…”

  Suddenly Adams shoved Matt back into the desk. “So you didn’t even try to save my son!”

  “Sir,” Matt was caught off guard. “I’m sorry, your son bled out.”

  Adams shrieked. “You killed him!”

  “Sir, please” Matt tried to back away.

  The security guard that had earlier backed off came forward. “Sir, you’re going to have to calm down.”

  “He murdered my son!”

  Matt was torn between protecting himself and trying to help the distraught father. “Mr. Adams I can assure you—“

  “Mr. Adams,” the doctor was back. “I can take you to see your son now, if you calm down.”

  Adams threw a final angry look at Matt before he drew in a deep breath and followed the doctor. Just before Adams disappeared from the hall, he turned back to Matt and said, loudly enough to be heard without yelling, “You will pay. You will. I swear it.” He followed the doctor through the double doors.

  Matt looked angry as he turned back to Jimmy. Before he had a chance to say anything Jimmy said “Fuck you!” and walked away.

  Tony witnessed the final exchange between Matt and Jimmy. He shook his head after Jimmy left and went over to Matt. “I think about now my wife would say I think that boy’s about two sandwiches shy of a picnic.”

  Before Matt’s shift was over, Jimmy called his uncle who in turn called the station commander. Both Matt and Tony were called into the chief’s office separately to give their version of the events. Matt had to go over every detail of the call in the chief’s office including what he told Jimmy in the ER. The chief was satisfied.

  “By the way Garratti, I spoke with the hospital ER. You saved her life. You did good.” The chief was nodding approvingly.

  When he finally left to head home, Matt sat in his car for a long time just staring at a wallet sized picture of Sudah holding Aden. Calls with kids always got to him. 

  ~~~~~

  Readers first met Matt Garratti in
  Final Sin 
   

  
  

  
  

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