Don't leave me

Author: (Italy) Margherita Mazzantini
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: You're wearing a faux wolf leather jacket, wearing earplugs, and zooming on a scooter past the stop sign. The rain has just stopped, but it will start again soon. The sky is overcast, and above the branches of the Paulownia trees and TV antennas, a large flock of chirping, fluffy black starlings is densely flying. They are close together, almost colliding, sometimes flying clockwise, then suddenly changing direction, dotting the gray sky. Then, these starlings quickly scatter, almost disappearing into the sky, but soon fly back densely. Pedestrians are using newspapers, even their hands, to shield themselves from the rain. Wet leaves are falling in clusters, the sidewalk is muddy and pungent. You speed down the street toward the intersection. The young man is driving and tries to avoid you, but the car wheels slip on the road and scrape against your scooter. The impact sends you flying toward the starlings, and then you and your backpack land on the sticky bird droppings. Your two notebooks fall into the drain and flow into the sewer. Your helmet is not fastened and bounces around the street. At that moment, someone immediately runs toward you. Your eyes are open, your face is dirty, and almost all your front teeth have fallen out. Your face is covered in asphalt residue, black like a man's beard. The music stops, and the earplugs get tangled in your hair. The man in the car quickly opens the door and runs to where you are lying. He looks at the deep wound on your forehead, reaches into his pocket for his phone, but drops it on the ground without holding it steady. A man picks up the phone—the one who reported the traffic accident. At this moment, the accident scene is well-preserved. The car is still across the electric train tracks, blocking the train. The driver and many passengers get out. Everyone is watching. You moan softly, spitting blood, and gradually lose consciousness. Due to the traffic jam, the ambulance couldn't arrive in time. You curl up in your faux wolf leather jacket, like a small bird with folded wings, no longer in a hurry to go anywhere.
Later, the emergency team arrives, carries you onto the ambulance, and it sirens as it speeds through the pedestrians and vehicles. Some cars move to the side of the road to clear a path. The ambulance driver must race along the highway by the river. The IV bag above your head sways continuously, and someone keeps squeezing a large blue bag to provide oxygen. In the emergency room of the ambulance, the doctor treating you sticks her fingers between your lower jaw and hyoid bone. This is a very sensitive area, but your reaction is abnormal. She uses gauze to wipe the blood from your forehead. Then she checks your pupils and finds them unresponsive and asymmetrical. At this moment, your heartbeat is slow, and your breathing is too shallow. Your tongue is dislocated to the back of your throat. To realign it, they insert an artificial suction tube into your mouth and then a tube through your nose to clear your airways. Next comes stopping the bleeding, cleaning the asphalt, mucus, and tooth fragments from your face. They use a pulse oximeter to clip your finger to measure the oxygen saturation in your blood. Your body's hemoglobin is 87%, life-threatening. Therefore, they must intubate you. The doctor uses a cold light to insert a laryngoscope into your mouth. Just then, a nurse pushes a heart monitor into the room and plugs it in, but the machine refuses to work. She gently taps the heart monitor, and the display lights up. They pull up your crewneck shirt and place several electrodes on your chest. The CT scan room is busy. You have to wait a while for the scan. The scan shows that you have head injuries and affects your temporal bone. On the other side of the glass window, the emergency physician asks the radiologist to take new, more detailed cross-sectional images of your head. These images show a large hematoma outside the brain tissue. At the other end of the skull, no contralateral hematoma is detected. No contrast agent is injected because of concerns about kidney complications. Next, they prepare the staff on the third floor for surgery. The physician treating the accident asks, "Who is on duty in neurosurgery?" Now, the medical staff has started preparing for your surgery. A nurse carefully removes your clothes (cutting them off) with scissors. No one knows how to contact your family. The medical staff hopes to find identification on you but doesn't. So, they search your backpack and find your diary. The emergency physician first looks at your first name, then your last name. She spends a few seconds looking at your last name, then your first name. She immediately becomes emotional, her face flushed, and she struggles to breathe, as if her mouth is full of hard food, blocking her airway. At this moment, she forgets her duty to save the injured. She looks at your face like an ordinary woman. She carefully examines your swollen face, hoping it's not real, hoping her fear will disappear. But you look like me. Ada confirms that you look like me. The nurse shaves your head, and the hair falls to the floor. Ada points to your dark brown hair and whispers, "Be careful! Be careful!" She walks to the intensive care unit and tells the on-duty neurosurgeon, "That girl, the one who just arrived." "You're not wearing a mask. Let's talk outside." They leave the sterile area, where family members are not allowed because the patient is lying bare and dependent on artificial respiration. They return to the room where the nurse is preparing for your surgery. The neurosurgeon looks at the monitor, checking your heart rate and condition. He says, "Her blood pressure is low. Have you ruled out chest or abdominal injuries?" He glances at you and quickly opens your eyelids with his fingers. Ada asks, "How is she?" The neurosurgeon asks the nurse, "Is the operating room ready?" "Not yet. It will be ready soon." "Don't you think she looks like him?" Ada asks eagerly. "She has an epidural hematoma." The neurosurgeon turns around and holds up the CT scan report to the light coming through the window. Ada grips her hand tightly and says loudly, "She looks like him, right?" "It might be intracranial."