Part 2 of Chap. 1

Trying to stand up, Blake carelessly put pressure on his wrist, causing him to fall over again. The lights from the metro cast a delicate shadow over him as the ground began to shake harder and harder as the train neared. The driver obviously didn’t see him, there’s was no sign that he was going to be slowing down, and who would see someone lying down in the middle of the tracks? Blake shut his eyes in despair, and wished to anything and everything, hoping that on some sort of miracle he could just roll away and miss the train. The train was nearly on his heels, and Blake looked up at the people, seeing the man’s face that had pushed him. The man had a grin set upon his square jaw, and his dark brown eyes seemed completely black and lifeless as he turned to look at the train.

Blake managed to get himself to his feet at the last moment, and flung himself towards the side of the tracks. Holding his hands to his head in despair, the train just kept on speeding by. It was missing him barely by just life-saving inches. Sparks ignited on the tracks as the train came to a halt, and then it took off.

He breathed heavily, trying to let more oxygen into his lungs to calm himself down. He took the belt off his pants, and tied it around his arm and neck as a temporary sling before he went to get it fixed. Taking out his cell phone, Blake dialed 911 quickly with his left hand, and let out a shaky breath while he put the phone to his ear.

“911 what’s the emergency?” the person said.

“I’m at the Coltran metro station and someone pushed me onto the tracks and I broke my wrist. I need to get to a hospital,” Blake tried to say calmly, but he knew all too well that he had probably rushed his words to an almost incomprehensible sentence.

“Stay where you are sir, we’ll have someone over there as soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” he said as he ended the call.

He felt a sudden blood rush to his head, and then extreme light-headedness came over him. Blake felt as though he was falling slowly backwards, being caught in a gentle breeze’s embrace, and then his head hit the pavement and everything went black.



Blake was greeted by the chatter of paramedics as his eyes slowly started to open and he could see what was going on. He was being strapped to a stretcher, and an oxygen mask was placed to his face, assuring that he was still breathing. He lifted his head slightly, and one of the paramedics pushed it back down gently.

“Don’t exhaust yourself,” he said to Blake gruffly.

The back of his head felt wet, and although he couldn’t see it, the white sheet he was placed on was stained red, and he realized that. With a groan, he let his head roll to the side and tried to keep his eyes open as much as he could to assure he remained conscious.

He was wheeled into the ambulance, and a paramedic got into the back with him and shut the doors that made a loud metal bang as they locked in place. Blake cringed at the noise that echoed through the back of the ambulance, but the noise was interrupted by the medic’s voice.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I just got pushed in front of a subway bus and broke my wrist,” replied Blake sarcastically.

The medic laughed, and readjusted the IV bag that got knocked over as they sped over the cracked up freeway. Looking out the window, he nodded to himself and then turned back towards Blake.

“We’re pulling into the Hospital parking lot now. Don’t worry, you won’t have to wait, because you have a crack in your skull so you’ll be admitted instantly.”

“Thanks a lot. Today’s just been weird,” said Blake with a shake of his head.

“No kidding, you just got pushed in front of a subway train. You’ll be fine,” he said with a warm smile.

The ambulance stopped, and Blake got blinded as someone opened up the doors of the back and the sunlight was let into the vehicle. He was wheeled out of the ambulance, and then right on through to the emergency room where a doctor awaited him. After being placed onto the gurney in the room, the doctor started filling out a basic injury report-like sheet.

“What’s your name, son? Full name if you please,” she asked. “I’m Dr. Pritchard.”

“Blake James Farrell,” replied Blake, putting his left hand out for a handshake. The doctor shook his hand with a warm smile, and moved around the gurney to get a better look at the back of his head. Accidentally touching his arm as she walked by, Blake cried out in pain.

“Christ!” he said as he winced.

“What’s wrong?” the doctor said, giving him an odd look.

“My wrist is broken,” he said apologetically.

“Oh! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I’ll take care of it as soon as I’m done gluing the cut in your head okay?” said Dr. Pritchard.

“That’s fine, as long as everything gets fixed,” he said, flashing her a smile that made her melt on the inside.

She carefully cleaned the blood from around the cut with a damp cloth, and then sterilized it with an alcohol swab and then glued it with something that smelled strongly, like crazy glue. She looked down at her watch and waited for two minutes to pass, and then put another coating of glue on.

“You have to be extremely careful now. If you start getting extreme pain in that area come right back and we’ll check it out again. You won’t be allowed to wash your hair for at least forty-eight hours while the glue dries, and make sure not to touch it so that it doesn’t reopen. I would’ve given you stitches because of it’s length, but it was already starting to scab and I didn’t want to shave off the hair on the back of your head.”

Giving him a paper that had basically what she had just said to him written on it, she motioned for him to follow her into the x-ray room to take a better look at his broken wrist. She disappeared for a moment, and Blake looked at her leave with a perplexed expression. When she returned, she handed him one of the pastel colored hospital robes and asked him if he would rather wear the robe or take his shirt off to make sure that the material of his clothing didn’t interfere with the x-rays.

“I’ll just take off my shirt, those robes are really uncomfortable,” he replied.

Using only his left hand, he struggled to take off the t-shirt he was wearing, but after a few minutes of what he assumed made him look like a flailing bird, he took it off. He placed it along with the hospital robe on the chair placed at the opposite end of the room.

“I’ll need you to place your whole left arm on this table here, and then I’m going to turn on the x-ray machine so I want you to look away alright?” said Dr. Pritchard as she walked over to the x-ray controls.

Blake nodded and did as she asked, placing his arm on the white-colored glass table. He looked away, and he could hear the machine turn on. Something passed over his arm, shining a light onto his arm and recording the image of his bones. He heard the machine’s low humming stop, and then Dr. Pritchard came back with an image of his broken wrist.

“Come, we’ll use the UV light back in my office.”

After Blake retrieved his shirt and struggled to put it back on, it took them almost three minutes to get back to her office, and when they did she put the image up on the light-screen. He could see where the bone has cracked, and Blake looked back down at his wrist wondering how badly he actually had landed.

“You wrist is broken just a bit below where the radius meets the carpal bones. You also fractured your ulna and one of your carpal bones. It’s going to take three to four weeks for it to heal, but it might take longer because of the multiple fractures.”

Blake nodded unhappily. One break and two fractures. Even as a kid he’d never broken anything as badly as that. He took a closer look at the break, and his radius bone was completely split across, and luckily it hadn’t moved or else it would’ve been much harder for
it to heal.

She took out a roll of gauze, and started bandaging his wrist tightly. Blake bit his lower lip as he held back cries of pain, and she finally cut the material, separating it from the rest of the roll.

“We’re going to go make the molding now
alright?” said Dr. Pritchard who felt as though
she wasn’t explaining things well enough.

“I hate this part,” Blake said with a shudder.

“You’ve broken a bone before?” she asked, surprised.

“I broke my shin when I was eleven. Let’s just say it hurt a lot more than this,” he said, lifting up his right arm. Dr. Pritchard laughed, and opened the door to the cast-making room.

“Wilson! We need a wrist cast for Mr. Farrell here,” she snapped to the man who seemed to be in charge of making casts.

“I’ll be right on it Dr. Pritchard,” said Wilson groggily. “I’ll need you to put your arm in this molding, Farrell,” he said, pointing to one of the various cast molds spread about the room.

Blake sat down on the chair next to the molding, and did as he was told. Wilson went to get some of the molding, and poured it on his forearm. Blake shivered from the grainy feeling of the mould, and sang a song to himself in his head to distract him. Wilson closed over the molding, and set a timer for fifteen minutes. He yawned again, and went back to the desk he was previously at and started writing madly.

“Wilson hasn’t been getting much sleep because he’s working on his doctorate degree. He’s been working on his Thesis in between visits from patients,” said Dr. Pritchard quietly so that Wilson wouldn’t hear her and get distracted.

The timer went off with a loud buzz, and Wilson jumped from his chair and opened the molding. The mould had settled and turned into an off-white color, and Wilson pried his arm carefully off of the mould. Shaving off the extra bits with a piece of sandpaper, Wilson then pointed towards the door.

“Now all your friends can sign it! Bye!” he said as he gave Blake and Dr. Pritchard an urging push out of the room so he could continue his work.