Chapter 10 - The Needle and the Blade
Clara slammed the heavy blue medical kit onto the table. Dr. Mercer snapped open a sterile syringe, plunged the needle into a glass vial of epinephrine, and drew the liquid with practiced precision.
Without hesitation, Mercer injected the drug directly into Ellie's femoral artery to bypass the collapsed peripheral vessels.
""Her trachea is too swollen,"" Mercer muttered grimly, shining a penlight down her throat while attempting to guide a flexible breathing tube. ""I can't pass the tube. The edema is completely occluding the larynx.""
""Then what do we do?!"" Julian yelled, his hands hovering over Ellie's small, still chest.
""Surgical airway,"" Mercer said, his voice deadly calm. ""Cricothyroidotomy. Julian, hold her head perfectly still. Clara, hold a sterile gauze pad right here. If she moves, I sever an artery.""
Julian locked his trembling hands onto either side of Ellie’s tiny face. His muscles shook violently with fear, but he held her as still as stone. Clara pressed her bleeding hands against the child's shoulders, tears streaming silently down her face.
Mercer drew a scalpel from the kit. With one clean, precise incision, he made a horizontal cut at the base of Ellie’s throat, just below the thyroid cartilage. Blood welled, instantly caught by the gauze. Mercer slipped a slender plastic tracheostomy cannula into the opening.
He attached a manual bag valve mask to the tube and squeezed.
Ellie's chest rose.
Mercer squeezed again. Her chest rose higher.
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Silence filled the room, broken only by the rhythmic, mechanical whoosh of air entering the little girl's lungs.
For ten agonizing seconds, nothing happened. Then, beneath Mercer’s fingers on her wrist, a faint flutter returned.
