CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Vernon drove his truck faster than he had ever driven in his life. He had no idea what the highest speed was that his truck could attain, until that night. Within three blocks of the hospital, a police car picked him up, turned on its flashing lights and siren, and ran up his tailpipe, undoubtedly thinking he was about to write a ticket for a speeding violation. Vernon didn’t slow down. Once there, at St. Agnes, he drove up the emergency drive and slammed on his brakes six feet from the entrance. The cop’s flashing lights got everyone’s attention, but nothing made them jump like the image of a blood-spattered, crazed young man bursting through the doors, screaming for help.
At first, the duty nurse thought Vernon was a victim of a mugging because he was covered head to toe in blood. The policeman burst through the doors behind him, suggesting he had made an accurate assessment of Vernon’s situation. Three emergency room assistants appeared from different rooms, responding to the sudden chaos of Vernon’s intrusion. The duty nurse, thirty-four year old Helen Kaplan, already a veteran in emergency trauma, remained calm and coolly picked up her phone and dialed the office of Dr. Ernst von Hoerner, the physician who was on duty for the night.
Vernon frantically explained himself and described the accident scene in a matter of precious seconds and then directed all hands to his truck and, specifically, to the bed of the truck, where the coffin was, which had been strapped to the floor of the bed. Vernon led the way, leaping onto the bed of the truck in a single bound, fueled by a high level of adrenaline. He yanked open the heavy coffin lid as two assistants stood alongside him on the flatbed with baited breath over the expectation that Vernon had created.
They gasped at the sight—a horribly mutilated, bloody human being of such gruesome proportions that they winced visibly despite their many years of experience handling emergencies. One of the ER assistants moved in on the body, searching for vital signs, although the leakage of blood from a couple of gaping wounds suggested this person, apparently a woman, was still alive. The ER person confirmed his finding, “She’s alive!” With that, the two ER assistants grabbed the hammocked blanket and lifted Connie out of the casket and into the waiting arms of others, who placed her on a gurney and ran with it into the hospital.
Connie moved within herself, within the deepness of herself, feeling lost and disconnected and in an existence that floated in and out of spaces she did not know, moving in an ether of nothingness, somewhere in an unknown space. She felt nothing—no pain, no cold, no warmth—just a kind of stillness when she was wheeled into the hospital on that gurney, blasted suddenly by bright lights. Images came and went, most making little or no sense, although she momentarily saw Carl, or some vaporous image of Carl that swirled into the nothingness like a dust devil. Then she saw her face in a mirror, the same image she had seen when Carl and she were leaving their apartment, but this time, there was no mirror, only an image of her face, floating as if it were a reflection in a pool of water. The face—her face—spoke to her again. This time it only whispered the words “You will never see me again,” then the image faded, and Connie fell into a crevasse of unconsciousness.
Vernon had stepped back toward the cab of his truck and leaned back on it moments after the two ER men had joined him on the bed of the truck. He collapsed, exhausted, and debilitated by the experience, immersed in the steam of his overheated body and unable to move, numb to what he would do next. The cop jumped up and helped him down to the ground and then escorted him into the hospital, where Vernon would be safe from the biting cold and, if necessary, could get some medical attention.
As it turned out, moments after entering the waiting area, Vernon collapsed again, this time in the police officer’s arms, from total exhaustion and shock, but not in a medical sense. He was simply traumatized by the events of the night. He was checked into St. Agnes for the night for observation. Moments after he had been helped into one of the hospital beds, he felt the downward pull of the sedative that he’d been given. Just before it kicked in, he said a prayer for that poor woman and hoped that he had saved her life, although maybe, he thought to himself, it would be a blessing if she went to a better place. Who, he wondered, could possibly recover from those injuries? Surely they would tell him in the morning if the woman had made it or not. His eyes closed with heavy, heavy lids, and he slipped into the nothingness of a deep sleep, coerced by sedatives.
Connie was already on the operating table, and Dr. von Hoerner was scrubbing up, when the duty nurse, Lucinda Barnes, solved the mystery of the injured woman’s identity. She burst into the prep room to share her discovery with the doctor.
“Dr. von Hoerner,” she blurted out, “the victim didn’t have a purse with her, but I found a letter in her coat pocket that was addressed to Mrs. Carl Koehler, and the letter begins ‘Dear Connie.’” Nurse Barnes looked at the doctor, wanting to know if he recognized the name. She thought that he might because Dr. von Hoerner, who had been serving the community for fifty miles in every direction for over thirty years, knew almost everyone.
In the instant upon receiving the news, he gasped and looked upward, saying, “Oh my God, it’s Connie Ortlieb! Call Ruby and Henry right away!”
“Ruby and Henry?” Nurse Barnes froze, seeking enlightenment.
“Yes, yes!” he exclaimed, “Ruby and Henry Steenport in Chilton. Call them right away! Waste no time! And Mrs. Von Hoerner… call her too, and tell her everything you can.” Nurse Barnes paused momentarily, in case he wanted to add anything further. One of the attendants slipped on his surgical gloves as the doctor turned to her and said, “Go! Go! Go!”
Nurse Barnes was out of the prep room before the third “Go!” left Dr. von Hoerner’s lips. He finished prepping, horrified that this trauma patient was Connie, the Connie he had delivered into this world twenty-five years ago.
Moments later, the doctor marched into the operating room, knowing that every second counted and the right decisions had to be made if there was to be any chance of survival. As he entered, he looked directly into the eyes of his senior operating assistant, Ida Voss, RN, a woman he had worked with for nearly as long as he had been practicing medicine, and through his surgical mask he said, “Ida, it’s Connie Ortlieb,” and then corrected himself, “Connie Koehler.”
Connie heard her name spoken and then blacked out again.
“Connie! Oh Lord!” whispered Ida, “Oh my!” her voice rose, “Surely that means one of the accident victims was Carl! How horrible, horrible, just…,” now exclaiming loudly, “HORRIBLE!” She looked up, momentarily stunned by the indiscretion of her raised voice. She strengthened her resolve, determined to do everything in her power to save Connie’s life. She glanced downward at a woman clinging to life, a woman she had known her whole life time, and then looked up from Connie’s mangled body, meeting Dr. von Hoerner’s experienced gaze and calmly said, “Let’s hope we can save her.”
“Yes, of course,” he replied. “Now let’s get to work!” Six people moved around the room, each with specific tasks, all doubtful that this life could be saved, but all committed to doing everything they could. In a flurry of movement, Dr. von Hoerner leaned over Connie, who in her dire condition and arrival in an unconscious state, had just been anesthetized. He spoke directly to her, “Connie, this is Dr. von Hoerner. You will make it through this; just hang on.” Everyone was moved by the doctor’s words.
The surgery began, although it wasn’t easy to know where to start—so many life threatening traumas were in play. The massive loss of blood concerned him the most, so first of all, he had to stop any further loss. He looked up at Ida and saw two wet spots on her surgical mask, just below her eyes, surely created by tears running down her cheeks. He would have to hold his own tears back; they could and would come later. He had known Ruby and Henry for the thirty years that he had been practicing medicine in Fond du Lac. He thought of them as the best people on earth. The tears would come, but right now he didn’t have time to think about the heartbreak that w
as about to befall them.
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