"Olshaker, Mark - Unnatural Causes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Olshaker Mark)

The memory of that day never ceased to haunt him. It changed everything
from that point on and led him to his new career.

Chapter One

Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Brian Thorpe waited with the rest of the
trauma team on the edge of Bethesda Naval Hospital's landing pad. In a
few moments the helicopter above them would be on the ground, and the
furious struggle to save a life would demand every element of his skill
and energy.

Perhaps it was his SEAL training, but Brian found he could often reach
down to a certain level of calm and stillness within himself just before
a period of maximum stress. Then, when the challenge did come, he could
face it with all of his consciousness carefully directed and focused.

Brian's gaze traveled up the strong vertical lines of the hospital's
main building, the twenty-two-story tower rising high above Maryland's
gently rolling hills. Stolid and fortresslike, the structure was an
impressive example of what might be termed late WPA modern. How strange
it must have seemed in the 1940s, this military citadel ascending toward
the sky to dominate the rural farms and cow pastures ringing the
nation's capital.

The helicopter landed. Crouching low to avoid the rotor downdraft,
Brian and the rest of the team dashed for the door as two paramedics
piled out with the stretcher. One of them held two IV bottles with feed
lines running into the comatose patient.

"What is it?" Brian yelled above the helicopter din.

"Gunshot in the chest," the paramedic shouted back. "Heavy bleeding.
Unconscious. Pressure just bottomed out." All this was said as they
raced along the concrete path from the landing pad to the emergency
room's double swinging doors.

Once inside, the anesthesiologist passed an endotracheal tube down the
victim's throat. Brian ripped open what was left of the patient's
shirt, poured Betadine over his chest, picked up a scalpel, and slashed
from the bottom of his neck to just below his rib cage. The tissue
layers separated as tiny fountains of blood spurted forth.

"Suction!" Brian ordered. "And let me have two units of blood."

The resident immediately penetrated the blood-filled chest cavity with
suction catheter tips. As soon as the fluid had been cleared away Brian
could see the source of the bleeding. The bullet had ripped into the
ascending aorta.

He worked feverishly to cross-clamp the artery so it would hold long