“I don’t remember,” Thomas said. “I couldn’t remember the name of the road so I gave them directions from town. I told them, ‘turn left by the old school house, then go straight. When you get to the big yellow house, turn right by the sycamore tree.’ I tried to make it very clear. I’m so sorry, Luis. The woman wanted me to stay on the line but my cell phone battery went dead and I lost her.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this?” Luis asked. There was a strong chance Thomas had given the paramedics directions that would lead them all over Bucks County.
“I guess I wasn’t thinking,” Thomas said. “I’m so sorry. He was running so fast I didn’t have a chance to stop or swerve. If I’d seen him coming, I’d have hit the tree instead. Oh, this is so bad. He has to live.”
Luis didn’t get mad at him. How could he? The poor old man was so grief stricken and in so much shock by then that Luis was afraid he was going to fall over with a heart attack. So he looked down at Cory again and said, “You’re going to be fine, Cory. I promise.” Then he grabbed Jasper’s arm and said, “We’re taking him to the hospital ourselves. I’m not waiting any more. If I have to call the paramedics again it could take another half hour and I’m not sure how much time he has left.” The strong feeling of urgency passed through him again. They didn’t have a minute left to waste.
“Should we move him?” Jasper asked. “They say not to move people like this because it could cause more problems.”
Luis looked into Jasper’s eyes. He shrugged and said, “I don’t know what else to do. His pulse is so low I’m afraid we’re going to lose him.” Though Luis normally would have waited for the paramedics, this time a little voice in his head kept saying, “Get him to a hospital fast.”
So Luis ran back to the truck. He pulled it as close to the ditch as he could. Then he and Jasper lifted Cory out of the ditch and placed him gently in the back seat, which thankfully had enough space to keep him comfortable. Cory remained unconscious the entire time, not even a blink. Jasper kneeled on the floor in the backseat beside Cory and Thomas climbed into the front passenger seat.
Luis started the truck and hit the hazard lights. He drove fast, without stopping for traffic lights or stop signs. He passed slower cars on the right and honked his horn at a group of those arrogant people on expensive bicycles who thought they owned the road. He ignored their obscene gestures, sped past them on the wrong side of the road, and continued driving without glancing back. He took mostly back roads, remembering the way from a trip to the emergency room when Hunter sprained his finger last summer.
When they finally pulled up to the emergency room entrance, he jumped out of the truck, ran into the hospital, and screamed at the person at the reception desk for help.
The three of them waited to hear news about Cory’s condition in the emergency room family area, a long, narrow football field of a room. CNN broadcasted the latest news and the Reverend Al Sharpton yammered about something political Luis wasn’t familiar with. Thomas sat at the end of a long row of blue vinyl seats staring down at his lap. Jasper remained standing, pacing the waiting room floor. He’d phoned Cory’s family to let them know what had happened.
Evidently, Cory’s mother and father were on vacation at the Jersey Shore and they wouldn’t get to the hospital until late that night. Luis called Jase and told him what had happened, then sat down beside a middle-aged woman with reddish brown hair who kept sighing and biting her fist. People came and went: a little boy with a sprained wrist, an older woman who had chest pains and thought she was having a heart attack, and a guy with yellow skin who was having a bad reaction to chemotherapy. By the time a doctor finally walked into the waiting area and looked around, Luis was the first one to stand and run over to him.
The ER doctor said Cory was still alive and he’d been moved up to the Intensive Care Unit. He said they could go up to the ICU waiting room where a doctor would talk to them about Cory’s condition. So they went up to the second floor and waited for another half hour. At least the ICU waiting room was empty and they could sit and sulk alone. At that point, Jase called and said he was home and he wanted to come to the hospital. But Luis told him to stay home and take care of Hunter. There was nothing Jase could do and Luis promised to call him when he got some news.
When the ICU doctor finally came out, he told them Cory’s condition was critical and they weren’t sure he’d make it through the night. His expression remained lugubrious and his tone grave. The doctor said even though he normally thought it best to wait for paramedics to arrive it was a good thing they hadn’t waited this time. Cory’s heart stopped the minute they’d rolled him into the ER. But they’d brought him back and his vital signs were stable. He had internal injuries, multiple head injuries, several broken ribs, and both arms had been broken. They’d put him on a ventilator and into an induced coma so he’d remain stable.
After Luis asked a few questions his condition, the doctor asked about Cory’s family: his next of kin and who was responsible for making decisions. Luis told him Cory’s mother and father were driving up from the Jersey shore and they were responsible for him. The doctor didn’t want to let Jasper or Luis into the ICU to see Cory until his family arrived and gave permission, but Luis reached for his arm and said, “We’re going in to see him right now. You can call security, you can call the police. But we’re going in there one way or the other.” So the doctor relented and allowed them ten minutes each. It was the fastest ten minutes of Luis’s life.
When he left Cory’s room, the bells and beeps from the machines attached to Cory’s body remained with him for the next three days whenever he closed his eyes.
By the time Cory’s mother and father arrived, Luis could barely move his arms. He hugged Cory’s mother and shook Cory’s father’s hand. This was the first time Luis had ever met Cory’s family and they were much older than Luis had imaged they would be. They were both in their mid-sixties. The mother’s hair was bluer than Thomas’s, with tight little permed ringlets, and she wore a pink flowery old-fashioned dress with a full skirt and low-heeled white pumps that matched her white vinyl purse. Cory’s father was tall and thin and bald, with age spots on his face and thick eyeglasses resting on the bridge of his nose. He wore baggy gray slacks, a white button-down shirt, and a navy blue cardigan. Luis and Jasper sat them down and explained everything in detail.