Shailee Lathe

Sunnybrook Hospital’s emergency ward was one of the four traumas wards in Ontario, Canada. It was also the busiest hospital in Toronto seated just off Bayview. A rather narrow four-lane road with more traffic than it could hold.

The emergency ward sat off back to the right of the main hospital building. It was the first building to the right when coming off Bayview Avenue. The exterior of the building was identical to the main and four other ones that made up Sunnybrook Hospital. The only difference was the inside.

The ward itself looked well used. It was divided into two main sections. The front part was the waiting area. It held a continuous row of chairs along the wall, and two lines in the middle facing the check in desk. There was a large wide path to the left. It connected a clear path from the outer ward doors to the actual emergency ward. The doors to the waiting room had a bright red sticker across the window of the sliding doors that read ‘EMERGENCY’ in white, bold Helvetica lettering. Along that wall was the check in desk. The desk was a counter that sat inside the emergency ward with a bulletproof glass screen in front, and a solid wall running the rest of the wall.

The inside of the ward was definition of organized chaos. There was a central desk right the front doors. It was the place where the staff gather around to discuss, argue, and talk to one another. The desk area contained: a double sided white board, three computers, three desks in box formation, chairs, patient charts, pens, carts, cubbyholes, and lots of loose papers. This was probably the most organized spaced. The rest of the ward held: 12 patients’ beds, all divided by faded yellow curtains; white or brown carts holding different materials; two ER rooms at the back and a staff only lounge. All of which sat on grey, speckled, and yet very cracked floor; and surround by wine, purple coloured walls that were stained in many places. So stained that it was impossible to tell what stain was what now. Many of which looked as though they were growing some sort of black mould in their centres or edges.

The entire place smelt that gross indescribable hospital smells. The one that you only find in highly sterile places. Which causes all employees to be constantly freezing; the visitors to feel sick, and all patients to complain about it being to hot.

“The staff toilet flooded again,” came Aaron’s voice as he walked towards the central desk. And stood in front of the ward’s resident go to guy.

He was heavyset man that looked oddly out of place at the small desk he worked at. He was bald, and wore a sleeveless muscle shirt instead of the mandatory white doctor coat. It was evident as to why, his large pumped up muscled arms wouldn’t have allowed such a tight-sleeved fit.

“Again? Wonderful, I’ll call maintenance.” He said picking up the phone. “Although, it’ll probably be as long as the last time.”

“Great,” said Aaron sarcastically.  “Looks like we’ll be using the public toilets down the hall again.”

“What’s this about public toilets?” came a female voice from behind them. Aaron turned his head to the side and nodded his head towards Sarah. Sarah was the head nurse here. A petite woman dressed in green scrubs, with her hair pulled back into a ponytail and a bright pink pen stuck in it.

“Aaron flooded the toilet again.” Both Sarah and the desk guy broke out into laughter.

“Your girlfriend made spicy Mexican food again?” said Sarah through a mouth full of giggles.

“Right,” said Aaron drumming his hands on the desk and smiling. “So her cooking isn’t great, she is better at other more important things.”

“You mean like –“

“Right people, we have a call coming in, the giggles can wait for later!” Came the booming voice of Nina the ward’s director.

Aaron and Sarah along with a few more staff members followed Nina out. They walked out the ward doors, through the crowed waiting room, and out into the car bay.  The sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. It sounded like maybe three or four ambulances.

“All right people,” said Nina turning around to look at the 15 or so staff members. “There was an explosion at a local factory. The victims have third degree burns and other superficial injuries.”

The sirens were coming closer. You could just about see their flashing red sirens against the night sky as they barrowed down Bayview’s narrow lanes. There were a total of four, all-weaving in and out of cars as they speed forward. As they neared the final intersection to assess the hospital, their sirens and horns blazed causing cars to screeched or skid to a stop. The first ambulance, gunning forward still, made the left turn to the hospital. Sliding through the intersection’s middle with screeching tires just made it into the lane’s entrance. The second ambulance handled the left turn the same but with more success and followed the first on closely into the waiting bay. Where they rolled to a stop. The third ambulance was still coming; took the left turn a bit late and slid through the lights and into a few stationary cars in the opposite lane. The cars made loud crunching noises and the back in hit them. The tires screeched and the ambulance launched forward and drove into the entrance closely following the fourth ambulance. They both turned into the emergency bay at a high speed. The fourth one skidded to a halt; tapping the side of the first ambulance. While the third one prowled into the curve, up onto the side walk and crashed into the side of the entrance’s doors.

“Okay…,” said Nina looking at the last two ambulances to arrive. “Obviously Toronto’s finest are on holiday. All right, least see what we’ve got.”

Nina walked up to the first ambulance as the back door open. The paramedic attending to the patient jumped down, as his partner pulled the stretcher out. The patient was strapped into the stretcher and wrapped up in shiny, sliver crinkly sounding blankets.

“What do we have?” came Nina’s voice over the sirens still coming in the distance.

“A 30 year old male, with chemical burns to 70 percent of his body – mainly his chest. He’s blood pressure is through the roof, difficulty breathing, and has a history of heart attacks,” rhymed off the paramedic. “HIV positive too.”

“Alright, Patrick, Sally, and May this one is yours,” Nina pointed at the ambulance as she walked over to the next one. “Prep the ER and call the Burn ward you’ll need their help for this one.”

“What, do we have here Brett?” Nina said while nodding towards the patient getting pulled from the back.

“Nothing interesting Nina,” Brett chuckle while consulting the patients chart.

“Factory worker with burned hands – looks like she’ll be losing them. Oh and watch out, this one still have some chemicals on her.”

“What do you mean not interesting!” exclaimed the angry patient.

“He means from a medical standing,” said Nina. “Right Sarah, Aaron this is yours. When finished we’ll need help in the ER.”

Aaron and Sarah nodded and walked forward. Sarah grabbed the chart and began looking through it and asking for more information. While the other paramedic and Aaron lead the way into the ward.

“All right, let’s put her in curtain seven,” Aaron said while pointing to said curtain. They wheeled the stretcher over, and moved the patient from it to the bed. “Okay let’s have a look at you.”

“Have fun with it, we need to get back out there,” explained Brett the paramedic. He and his partner left pulling the stretcher behind them.

Aaron nodded and began to pull off the silver, crinkly blanket from the lady’s hands. He was already able to tell how bad the hands were from removing the blanket and starting to undo the gauze. The hands were still very hot, signs that the flesh was still burning underneath it. Not to mention the patient wasn’t wincing in pain from him handling the hands.

Sarah had, in the mean time; grabbed a cart of equipment to deal with the burns and anything else. Of course, she wasn’t expecting the scene beneath the wrappings.

The hands underneath the bandages were not just black and crispy, with curled in fingers from losing the muscles like they should be. No, these hands were different. They were black and possibly every other colour of the rainbow. The normal black, chard, and crispy skin had gooey clumps of colour. Colour, that seems to be melted into the burnt skin.

“Erm… are you sure these are burns?” asked Aaron.

Sarah tore her eyes away from the hands and consulted the patient’s chart again. “According to the paramedics, yes.” She said then looked up at the patient. “What type of factory did you work in Miss?”

“A candy one,” said the women, as though it was something they ought to have known by now.

“A candy factory,” repeated Aaron, looking over the hands. “And Brett said this wasn’t an interesting case. Sarah, start with taking off as much of the candy off. Then we’ll see if we can preserve the hands. I’m going to go and get a consult from the Burn Unit.”

“Okay,” said Sarah turning to the cart and picking up a scalpel. “Let’s see what the damage is like.” Taking a hand, Sarah began to slowly pick off the melted colour candy. It wasn’t easy; the candy was melted fairly well into the skin. Which made it very difficult to not take some of the skin off while at it.

Mean while, Aaron walked through the ward’s halls looking for the Burn Unit. He knew they were called to the ward from hearing the PA system. But the question was more about where were they. It was made harder since the ward was getting more and more busy with victims from the explosion.

“Hey,” called Aaron as he walked up to the desk with the go-to guy. “Do you know where I can find the Burn Unit?”

“ER one – wear a mask.”

“Thanks!” called Aaron as he ran to the back of the ward to the ER rooms. Stopping just outside to grab a mask, which he held up to his face, then pushed the ER doors open.

Emergency room one was like the rest of the ward – falling slowly apart before everyone’s eyes. The room held a busy staff that crowed around whatever poor patient that need help. The staff seemed to be busy pushing and pulling at each other to get closer to the patient. They had a good reason; the room was tiny.

“Aaron,” called out Nina from the middle of the crow. “What do you want?”

“The Burn Unit consultant,”

Nina made some sort of signal to the crowd and an older man stepped back from the group. He was old, with black, greying hair and glasses perched on his nose. He wore scrubs, with a surgeon hat, mask, and gloves.

“You need a consult?” He said in a heavy voice.

“Yes, come on, out here,” said Aaron leading the way from the room to just a ways outside. He tore the mask off once outside and turned towards the man. “We have a patient with extremely burnt hands.”

“Well that’s simple. What do you need me for?” asked the man, as he too removed his gear and headed toward the front desk with Aaron walking behind him.

“Because there is still candy colour chemical clumps stuck to her hands. I left a nurse to remove them, we need you to check if the hands are still salvageable.”

The man stopped on the spot and slowly turned around. “There’s still candy on them? How is it being removed?”

“So far with a scalpel,” said Aaron leading the way to the patient. “They are right over here at curtain seven.”

There was Sarah; standing with her back was turned to them as she fiddled with something on the cart. It wasn’t long before she turned around holding a small flame torch used to burn things away.

“Shit!” spat the man with wide eyes as he began to run towards the patient and Sarah. “DON’T PUT THAT NEA –“

Outside, on Bayview Avenue, a deafening loud explosion rang out through the area. The ground shook, and the night sky were set on fire. The explosion came from Sunnybrook Hospital’s emergency ward.

The scene was horrendous. The whole ward was nothing more then a ball of fire. Flames reached up close, to 30 feet. Some of them licked at the adjoining walk ways to the rest of the hospital. People and staff from the hospital stumbled and gathered outside looking with shocked plastered faces at the wreckage. The stood, frozen in fear, amazement, and confusing at the scene.

Sirens could be heard in the distance. Scrambling in a race to get to the second explosion in the city.

The death count stood tall at 150 people. And counting.

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Krysta is a talented photographer, a gifted story teller and a wonder girl with graphice. She is a gem of a person to know, I am lucky to have her.  Do visit her stylish online gallery at  Krysta Media