Sheryl's Saga #1 (draft)
Sheryl's Saga Part One
Written by: April F. Bair9-1-1ASheryl arrived at the hospital a little bit after six.The name on her chart was highlighted yellow and read "Patient: Doe 01.041007-911A"Nurses in triage, the emergency room doctors and Patti from patient billing couldn't understand most of what the patient in exam room 6 was saying and they had no idea who she was. Her mid-length hair was so dirty they weren't sure if it was dark blond or light brown. No jewelry, no cell phone, no purse and absolutely where or she was.She was intently looking at something far away when Mr. Perez pulled back the hospital curtain.Mr. Perez pulled her chart out of the plastic holder on the wall with his left hand and was pleased that this one had been calm so far.He looked back and forth between the medical chart and the worn down, exhausted woman. So far they had not been able to identify her. Police and the paramedics from the ambulance thought her name might be Shea but without any identification they really didn't know. Her description was in the system so mostly they were just waiting. Identifying her was not the most important thing going on and once she sobered she should be able to reveal herself so there was no use waisting to much time trying to get a name. She had only been at ER a few hours.Her medical condition was stable, test results were not back from the lab yet and police had not been able to contact the owner of the car they found her in.Mr. Perez had a lot of experience with drunken patients and he could tell this young lady was going to be in treatment for a long time. That would be someone else job. Mr. Perez was just there to assess everything and either release her or send her off for a full psych eval.Like always he was careful about where the dangerous things in the room were. The food tray and the tissue box were the most common weapons since just about everything else in the room was bolted down or tied up with a tether. Most of the time the worse thing patients would do was try to pull out there IV or stand up and they would end up getting banged up. Irritated patients usually went for kicking the metal trash can which Mr. Perez usually pushed to the back of the treatment area when he sat down.Mr. Perez moved the bed table away and sat down on the little stool next to her. The bedtable had wheels and he'd had them come flying at him a few times.Sitting on the stool he scootched back far enough to be away from her leg reach just in case she started to kick at him. He wanted to by close enough that they could talk but safety first."I am Mr. Perez. It looks like you are having a pretty rough da." he began. "It is my job to get you out of this emergency room to a safe place where you can rest and feel better."The patient turned her head and glared at him angrily. He wondered if she had heard this line before and he looked at her carefully in case they had met before. Her brow was furled and her shoulders pushed forward a little with her arms tight against her body."Do you know where you are?"She narrowed her eyes a little."You are at Park General Hospital. The paramedics said they think your name is Shea?" he asked, pausing to see if she gave a response."Is your name Shea?" he asked more directly.She pulled her hand up to her head and over the right side of face than rested on the pillow and muttered that sounded like it started with an "s" or an "sh". Her speech was so slurred that it could have been one or two syllables. Was she repeating her name or saying something else?Mr. Perez couldn't really tell but he went on with his assessment trying to figure out how much of her stupor was drunk, how much was attitude and where he should recommend she be sent. There was no way that this one was going home and he really hoped that family and friends didn't turn up until after she was transferred and committed to a program.There was no question that she was on her way somewhere other than home but it would really help to know where home was for this female patient, late 20's, admitted after she pulled into a gas station and passed out blocking pump #6.Krystal, who was working the evening shift at the Shell station called 9-1-1 from the store manager's phone when she noticed that the same blue Cavalier had been parked at pump #6 for a while. She zoomed in with the video surveillance monitor and about to make an announcement over the PA about not blocking the pumps while shopping this the convenience store were she saw the driver slumped over the wheel.An ambulance came and then the police who stayed with the car filling out paperwork until the tow truck arrived to take the car to police impound.The cops said she would be charged with drunk driving. They would reviewed the video footage of the pumps and watcher the blue Cavalier pull up and stop. She opened the car door once but never got out of the car. Paramedics took vials of blood before they sent her on to the hospital but there was new question that the woman was drunk. The bottle of Wild Turkey on the passenger floorboard was caught by fast food trash before it spilled but there were only a few swallows left in the bottle.Mr. Perez had one more patient he needed to check in on before he could call into the police liason and find out if there was anymore infomation on this one. When she was medically cleared someone would take her a treatment facility to start rehab. As he tried to decide which treatment program to call first he hoped that Judge Blackmeyer was on call tonight. Some of the judges were too lenient of cases like this and would resist signing the involuntary commitment and there was no was that this girl was going to get the help she needed without one. He looked over his roster of current treatment opeings the normal litany of questions raced through his mind. "Does she have a family? Do they enable her or are they just exhausted? How long has she been drinking like this and has she been through rehab before?" he wondered.Twin Forks Behavioral Health answered the phone on the third ring."Yes Mr. Perez," the intake nurse said over the phone "we have 3 openings on the BRP unit but only 1 on AI. I think that County may be interested in sending a schizophrenic in a few hours though. Do you think she needs to be on the Adult Intensive Unit?""I think so." Mr. Perez said. "We don't have her tox screen or lab tests back and she isn't communicating with us at all. When she starts coming out of this there is no way to tell what her state will be. The only thing we know for sure is that she doesn't have any track marks or cuts.""Well, Mr. Perez, if they can get her here in the next few hours I'll slot her into the AI unit. I'm assuming you don't know anything about her insurance.""Nope, we haven't even been able to get a name yet.""OK. Call when she is on the way out of ER's doors. Patient number is a typical Doe, 01, date?"Yes. 01 for female,her admin date is today, day,month, year...she was admitted as a 9-1-1 alcohol code.
"So DOE 01.041007-911A?"
"Yep, that's it. I'll have them fax the admit paper work over right away.""All right Mr. Perez. Talk to you later!"... tune in tomorrow for the next instalment of Sheryl's Saga
