Small Great Things(121)

“Prior to responding to the code,” Odette asks, “had you ever met this patient?”

“No,” Dr. Hager says.

“Had you ever met his parents?”

“No.”

“Can you tell us what you did when you reached the nursery?”

“I intubated the patient,” Dr. Hager replies. “And when my colleagues couldn’t get an IV in, I tried to help.”

“Did you make any comments to Ruth during this process?” Odette asks.

“Yes. She was doing compressions, and I instructed her at several times to stop so that we could see if the patient was responding. At one point, when I felt she was a little aggressive with her chest compressions, I told her so.”

“Can you describe what she was doing?”

“Chest compressions on an infant involve pressing the sternum down a half inch, about two hundred times a minute. The complexes on the monitor were too high; I thought Ruth was pushing down too hard.”

“Can you explain what that means to a layperson?”

Dr. Hager looks at the jury. “Chest compressions are the way we manually make a heart beat, if it’s not doing it by itself. The point is to physically push the cardiac output…but then let up on your thrust long enough to let blood fill the heart. It’s not unlike plunging a toilet. You have to push down, but if you keep doing that and don’t pull up, creating suction, the bowl won’t fill with water. Likewise, if you do compressions too fast or too hard, you’re pumping, pumping, pumping, but there’s no blood circulating in the body.”

“Do you remember what you said to Ruth, exactly?”

He clears his throat. “I told her to lighten up.”

“Is it unusual for an anesthesiologist to suggest a modification to the person who is doing compressions?”

“Not at all,” Dr. Hager says. “It’s a system of checks and balances. We’re all watching each other during a code. I might just as well have been watching to see if both sides of the chest were rising, and if they weren’t, I would have told Marie Malone to bag harder.”

“How long was Ruth overly aggressive?”

“Objection!” Kennedy says. “She’s putting words in the witness’s mouth.”

“I’ll rephrase. How long was the defendant aggressive with her chest compressions?”

“It was only slightly aggressive, and for less than a minute.”

“In your expert medical opinion, Doctor,” Odette asks, “could the defendant’s actions have caused harm to the patient?”

“The act of saving a life can look pretty violent, Ms. Lawton. We slice open skin, we crack ribs, we shock with extreme voltage.” Then he turns to me. “We do what we have to do, and when we are lucky, it works.”

“Nothing further,” the prosecutor says.

Kennedy approaches Dr. Hager. “Emotions were running very high in that nursery, weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Those compressions that Ruth was doing—were they adversely affecting the infant’s life?”

“On the contrary. They were keeping him alive while we attempted medical intervention.”

“Were they contributory to the infant’s death?”

“No.”

Kennedy leans on the railing of the jury box. “Is it fair to say that in that nursery, everyone was trying to save that baby’s life?”

“Absolutely.”

“Even Ruth?”

Dr. Hager looks right at me. “Yes,” he says.

—

THERE IS A recess after the anesthesiologist’s testimony. The judge leaves, and the jury is removed from their box. Kennedy spirits me away to a conference room, where I am supposed to stay, so that I remain safely sequestered from the media.

I want to talk to Edison. I want a hug from Adisa. But instead I sit at a small table in a room with hissing fluorescent lights, trying to untangle this chess game in my head.

“You ever wonder?” I ask. “What you’d do, if you weren’t a lawyer?”

Kennedy glances at me. “Is this your way of telling me I’m doing a shitty job?”

“No, I’m just thinking. About…starting over.”

She unwraps a piece of gum and passes me the rest of the packet. “Don’t laugh, but I wanted to be a pastry chef once.”

“Really?”

“I went to culinary school for three weeks. I was eventually conquered by phyllo. I just don’t have the patience for it.”

A smile dances over my face. “Go figure.”

“What about you?” Kennedy asks.

I look up at her. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I’ve wanted to be a nurse since I was five. I feel like I’m too old to start over, and even if I had to, I wouldn’t know where else to go.”

“That’s the problem with having a calling,” Kennedy says. “It doesn’t just pay the rent.”

A calling. Is that why I unwrapped Davis Bauer’s blanket when he wasn’t breathing? “Kennedy,” I begin, “there’s something—”

But she interrupts. “You could go back to school. Get a medical degree or become a PA,” she suggests. “Or work as a private caregiver.”