Chapter 4

ADALYN

The emergency room doors burst open.

Two nurses pushed a stretcher into the room as fast as they could. Adalyn lay on it, completely still. Her shirt was partially soaked with blood, and her face was pale.

“Female, late twenties!” one of the paramedics shouted. “Found unconscious at the scene of a vehicle accident”

“What’s her blood pressure?”

“Eighty over fifty!”

“Pulse?”

“Thready. One hundred and twenty-eight!”

A doctor rushed toward the stretcher.

“Put her on the monitor. Oxygen now.”

A nurse quickly placed an oxygen mask over Adalyn’s face.

“Her oxygen saturation is dropping!”

“Get two large-bore IV lines in.”

The room exploded into movement.

One nurse cut through the blood-stained fabric around Adalyn’s arm while another inserted an IV cannula.

“Line is in.”

“Start normal saline.”

The doctor checked Adalyn’s pupils.

“Pupils are unequal. She’s got a head injury.”

“Doctor, she’s not responding!”

“Miss, can you hear me?”

There was no response.

The doctor pressed two fingers against her neck.

“Pulse is getting weaker.”

“BP is seventy over forty!”

“Call radiology. We need an urgent CT scan, but stabilize her first.”

A nurse rushed toward the blood bank.

“Doctor, we don’t know her blood type.”

“Send a blood sample for typing and cross-match. In the meantime, prepare emergency O-negative blood.”

Adalyn suddenly gasped beneath the oxygen mask.

Then her heart monitor screamed.

“She’s going into cardiac arrest!”

“Start CPR!”

The nurse immediately began chest compressions.

“One, two, three, four…”

“Prepare one milligram of epinephrine.”

“Epinephrine ready.”

“Give it.”

The medication was pushed through the IV line.

“Continue compressions.”

The doctor watched the monitor.

“Come on, miss. Stay with us.”

Nothing changed.

“Still no pulse!”

“Keep going.”

The nurse continued compressions, sweat forming on her forehead.

“Two minutes!”

“Check rhythm.”

Everyone stopped.

The doctor looked at the monitor.

“PEA.”

Her face tightened.

“Resume CPR.”

The room filled with hurried footsteps, alarms, and shouted instructions.

“Her pressure is crashing!”

“Give another fluid bolus!”

“Doctor, we’ve got blood!”

“Start the transfusion.”

The nurse connected the blood to Adalyn’s IV line.

“Come on,” the doctor whispered. “Don’t give up.”

Another two minutes passed.

“Check rhythm.”

The compressions stopped.

Everyone stared at the monitor.

A steady rhythm appeared.

“I have a pulse.”

The room went quiet for half a second.

Then everyone moved again.

“She’s back.”

“Blood pressure?”

“Eighty-five over fifty.”

“Better.”

“She’s breathing?”

“Very weak.”

“Keep the oxygen on. Prepare for intubation.”

The doctor inserted the laryngoscope while the anesthetist prepared the endotracheal tube.

“Tube in.”

“Confirm placement.”

“Bilateral breath sounds present.”

“Secure it.”

The ventilator began to push air into Adalyn’s lungs.

The doctor checked her pupils again.

“Let’s get her to CT.”

The stretcher was pushed out of the emergency room.

For the next several minutes, the doctors worked to keep Adalyn alive.

Her blood pressure remained dangerously low. Her body was cold.

She had several bruises and cuts on her body. Including a very bad head injury.

But slowly, the numbers on the monitor began to improve.

“BP is ninety-five over sixty.”

“Heart rate one hundred and four.”

“Oxygen saturation ninety-eight.”

The doctor finally released a breath.

“She’s stable enough for the ICU.”

The nurse looked at her.

“She’s going to make it?”

The doctor looked at Adalyn through the glass.

“For now.”

The doors closed behind them.

Adalyn had survived.

***

Adalyn opened her eyes, but all she could see was a bright white blur. Panic surged through her, she tried to sit up but instead she felt a throbbing pain in her head. She winced and squeezed her eyes shut.

A soft beeping sound came from beside her. A nurse quickly came to her side.

“Easy. Don’t move.”

Adalyn stared at her.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital.”

Her voice was weak.

“Why?”

The nurse pressed a button beside the bed.

“I’ll get the doctor.”

Adalyn looked around.

There were wires attached to her chest. An IV line ran into her arm. A small tube was under her nose.

She tried to remember what had happened. But all she met was a blank mind.

A jovial looking woman who looked like she was in her forties entered the room.

“Good morning. I’m Dr. Miller.” She said with a wide smile on her face.

“How long have I been here?”

“About two days.”

“Two days?”

“Yes.”

Adalyn tried to swallow but she felt pain in her throat.

“What happened to me?”

The doctor pulled a chair closer.

“You were involved in a serious accident. A car accident.”

Adalyn frowned, searching.

“I.. I don’t remember”

Dr. Miller nodded slowly, as though she’d expected the answer.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” The doctor asked “and can you remember your name?”

Adalyn closed her eyes. Faces came to her first, gentle and familiar. Her mother’s laugh. Her father’s voice calling her name from the kitchen. “Adalyn,” she murmured to herself, and the name settled into place easily, like it had never left. “My name is Adalyn Hart.”

She frowned harder..

“And the last thing I remember is…” she paused. “ having dinner with my father.”

“He was talking about a wedding,” she added.

She tried remembering beyond that but nothing else came.

“Whose wedding?”

Adalyn thought hard, her brain almost exploding but she couldn’t remember anything at all. 

“I…I can’t remember”

Dr. Miller wrote something down, her expression carefully neutral.

“You suffered a traumatic brain injury in the crash. You also lost a dangerous amount of blood, and your heart stopped briefly after you arrived.”

Adalyn’s eyes widened.

“My heart stopped?”

“Yes. We performed CPR, gave you medication and blood. You were in critical condition.”

“But I remember my family. I remember my name. Why would I forget a wedding and every other thing but not forget them?”

“It’s not unusual,” Dr. Miller said gently. “Memory loss from a brain injury doesn’t always work in clean lines. Sometimes the oldest, most deeply rooted memories survive intact, while the events closest to the trauma itself are the ones that go missing. It’s called retrograde amnesia. The brain protects what it’s had the longest to store, and loses what it hasn’t finished processing yet.”

“So it could come back?”

“It’s possible. Some memories return gradually. Others take longer. Some patients recover everything within days. For others, certain gaps never fully close.”

Adalyn stared at her hands, at the IV taped into her skin.

“How did I even get here? To the hospital?”

“You were brought in by an elderly couple who were on their way home”

“Was anyone else with me? At the crash?”

The doctor paused, just slightly.

“You were alone when they found you.”

A strange emptiness opened up in Adalyn’s chest. She could remember planning a wedding but not the man she was getting married to. It was maddening, not knowing anything.

“There was no ID on you when you were brought in,” Dr. Miller said, sensing her confusion. “No phone, no wallet. Just a travel box. We don’t have any information beyond what the paramedics found at the scene. Is there anyone we can call for you? Family?”

Adalyn opened her mouth to answer—and stopped. 

Some part of her instincts told her not to say anything about her father, at least if she could remember, her instincts were always right. 

“No one,” she said instead.

Dr. Miller reached out and gently touched her arm.

“We’ll figure it out. One step at a time.” 

“And oh thankfully, nothing happened to the baby.”

Adalyn looked up sharply.

“What baby?”

“When you were brought into the hospital, we discovered you were two weeks pregnant.”

Adalyn froze.

“Pregnant?”

“Yes.”

Her lips parted, but no words came out.