Anna stepped back. There was definitely something wrong with the infant; she looked a little blue around the lips. A cold hand squeezed her heart and her brain shut down. All she could see was a still little body, his skin cold as ice.
“Give her oxygen now, check blood gases and listen to her heart for murmurs,” she choked out.
She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were squeezed shut, no air would go in or come out. She turned and ran outside, desperate for oxygen. As soon as she’d cleared the tent, she put her head between her knees trying to calm down enough to get air into her lungs.
“No. No. No. No. No!” She barely realized she was chanting the words.
Her chest burned as she gasped for air. Everything spun around her. Her knees buckled and she fell, scraping her hands. She sat on the muddy ground and closed her eyes, picturing herself in the depths of the ocean, imagining the schools of fish going about their business, corals moving with the currents. One of her PHS colleagues had suggested taking up scuba diving. The hobby had given her the muscle memory she needed to control her breathing and the ability to close her senses and focus on a visual. A way to cope. To be a functional human being again.
Three hundred and thirty-six hours, and then she could leave.
She opened her eyes. Linda was standing with one hand on her hip, the other holding out a little cup of water.
Anna drank even though she wasn’t thirsty. She knew the act of swallowing would force her diaphragm to relax and slow her breathing.
“Are you dismissing me?” Anna wheezed out.
“I should. But besides you, I’m the only doctor here. The local nurses and paramedics have barely enough training to help. I haven’t slept in over a day.” She blew out a breath. “I have to deal with you until reinforcements arrive. But this will be noted in your record.”
Anna didn’t care about a reprimand in her file. “I’m a competent doctor. I can deal with just about anything other than children. It’s personal.”
Linda sighed, clearly frustrated but resigned. She gave a dismissive shake of her head. “Guess I need to go treat those kids.” She pointed to an area where people were erecting more tents. So far the camp had about twenty, but just in the time Anna had been walking around, a new one had been put up.
“I’ve already checked on everyone to this point.” Linda gestured to the tents at the periphery. “I need you to start with those who arrived in the last two hours. They’ve been put in tent twenty-four. The paramedics who’ve been helping triage have been instructed to start putting people in tents as they’re built.”
Linda turned to walk away.
“Dr. Tucker, I have one more request.”
Linda turned, her brows furrowed with impatience.
“I have some family here in Guam, and I don’t know whether they’re okay. Can I go check on them?” Anna hadn’t meant to sound desperate, but Linda’s frown softened.
“Start by checking the roster to see if they’re here.” She glanced at her watch. “Can you go in after seeing the backlogged patients? I need a few hours of sleep.” Her tone was almost pleading.
Anna nodded. She’d been waiting for almost two days. A few more hours wouldn’t make a difference. Not to Nico.
She parted ways with Linda and went to the medical command to ask the clerk for the roster of patients.
“I’m still transferring the paper logs to the computer. Check in later.”
“Can you see if there was anyone by the last name Atao?” she said softly. The clerk looked up, eyeing the nameplate on her right breast pocket. He nodded, then tapped on the keyboard and shook his head.
“No one so far. I’ll come find you if I see that name appear in the paper logs or the new arrivals.”
Anna thanked him.
“We’re not the only medical camp around the island. I’ll ask the others when I make my status calls.”
Tears stung her eyes at the pity in his voice. She stood straight, thanked him, then turned. Despite her best efforts, she hadn’t been able to sleep on the plane. Couldn’t stop herself from imagining all the scenarios she would face on Guam. Still, she was alert and eager to get to work.
The tents were filled to capacity. A standard issue tent could comfortably take twenty patients, but there were easily more than forty per tent. Each person shared his or her narrow cot with one or two others, taking as little space as they could so there was room for everyone. Anna introduced herself to the local paramedic, Jared, who was assigned to watch over the tent, and got right to work. Most people had broken bones and wounds of various sorts, which the paramedic had bandaged. A dialysis patient was worried about how he would manage. Anna figured the patient could comfortably make it another day or two before he would get toxic; hopefully resources would arrive by then. The first days after a disaster were always the hardest.
The young paramedic with curly black hair and dark eyes followed her from patient to patient, chatting away.
“My cousins are helping get the airport fixed,” Jared told her. “There’s so much junk on the runway, Lando—that’s my uncle—had to go get a garbage truck to haul it all out.”
Anna knew that one of the reasons so few resources had made it to the island was that helicopters were very inefficient. They could only carry so much weight to conserve fuel for the long journey back to Japan or the Philippines. The neighboring Marshall Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands—CNMI—had also been badly damaged in the tsunami.
“What about the military base?” Anna inquired as she drained the infected wound of an older woman.
“They were also damaged. They’re repairing the base and sent an engineer to direct the efforts to fix up the airport, but there aren’t a lot of people on base.”
Anna nodded. Five years ago she had pleaded with the garrison officer on the air force base and each of the two navy bases, but they hadn’t been able to help her. They’d been stretched thin with troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan and there were no helicopters to transport Lucas off the island, no cardiac surgeons at the military hospital to perform the operation that could have saved his life.
“Have there been a lot of casualties?” Anna asked out of earshot of the patients as they went to get more supplies.
Jared shrugged. “It’s hard to say right now. We had a brief warning from Hawaii saying they detected an earthquake off their coast, so we told everyone to take shelter inland, but not everyone made it. We’re seeing a lot of rescuer injuries.”
Her stomach roiled. Knowing Nico, he’d be out there putting himself at risk.
Once she was done gathering supplies, she moved on to the next tent, scanning every face for the one she knew so well. Yet another paramedic assisted her as she checked each patient in the overflowing tent. The hours sped by as more tents were put up, additional workers arrived and patients who’d been waiting in a triage area outdoors were moved to shelter.
Anna was surprised to see it was already dark when she came out of the last tent. People were still coming in, but she’d visited every patient at least once and discharged several after bandaging their wounds. She rolled her shoulders, trying to ease out the tension. She’d been on the island for five hours and forty minutes. She wondered whether she should try to find Linda or just inform the medical command clerk that she was heading to Tumon Bay to check on Nico. He’s probably okay. Still, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in her stomach.
A shout grabbed her attention. “We have incoming, they need a doctor. Now!”
Anna ran to the triage area, where a group of new arrivals were gathered. A man yelled, “Ayuda, ayuda.”
Anna stepped up and placed a hand on the man’s