There was a long pause. “Be safe, Mo. Watch out for you.” Right about then someone was giving Monica a vaccine of some sort. She didn’t even bother asking what it was for. She didn’t want to know the risk. She was going… she had to.
“I love you, Jessie. Kiss Danny for me. I’ll try and call.”
“Once every couple of days.”
“I’ll try.” She’d do more than try. Unless the lines were completely down, she’d call.
The flight from Florida to Jamaica was on a cargo plane. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since the tsunami hit the northern coast of the island, and the death toll was estimated in the thousands. There hadn’t been a tsunami of this nature on the shores of the island in recorded history. Even earthquakes were rare. There had been an earthquake in the ocean hours before the shaker hit the island, causing the tsunami to hit close behind the quake. It really didn’t matter how or why the devastation happened, it needed to be cleaned up and the suffering people needed help.
According to their team briefing, bodies were washing up on shore and those who survived filled the hospitals and clinics all over the island.
Earlier, Monica had attempted to sleep on the flight from LA to Miami but only managed about an hour. Even with the ear protection, the noise in the cargo plane was too difficult to think past to allow her brain to turn off and rest.
The conversation with John hummed in the back of her mind… but the conversation with her boss, Pat, was what really weighed on her mind.
“You’re due in on Saturday.” Pat never had liked Monica. Her voice and words echoed the sentiment Monica knew was there.
“It’s a humanitarian effort. The hospital can release a press statement about allowing your nurses and doctors leave.” This was a practiced line Walt had said to use. On top of that, Walt had spoken with the head of the doctors’ group expressing his need to be there. “The hospital can always use good PR.”
There had been a long pause. “Get your shifts covered, Monica. And use the part-time staff to do it. I’m not authorizing any overtime.”
Monica’s vacation time would keep a paycheck in her absence. Five to eight days was usually the limit to these efforts. What kind of vacation it would be… that was left to be seen.
Instead of giving Pat the snarky reply that sat on Monica’s tongue, she smiled. “I’ll get it covered.”
Monica’s ears popped as the plane began its descent. Unlike a commercial flight where a smiling attendant reminded you to stay seated and keep your seat belts on, this one was met with the head of their team attempting to yell over the noise of the plane. “Stay seated,” he said before gesturing with his hands to keep the seat belts on. Not that Monica had taken hers off.
Other than the training she’d been a part of a year and a half before in Florida, this was Monica’s first real test. A foreign country with multiple issues that would bring untold patients. Flood victims, earthquake survivors, patients cut off from their families. When she’d stepped on the plane, she locked away the part of her that bled for those who truly suffered.
Early in her ER career one of her mentors had told her something that stuck with her from that day forward. “You’re here to help. Either get in there and get your ass to work, or step away. You won’t do anyone any good crying. You can cry later.”
Best advice ever. It made her a better nurse. Monica knew that. Patients didn’t always understand, but her colleagues… they got it.
As much as Monica braced her spine for what was coming, there was no way to brace for the reality of the scale of this mass casualty incident.
The airplane met the tarmac with a jolt, the landing anything but smooth. American Airlines has nothing to fear.
The nurses and doctors were shuffled off the plane while search and rescue workers were helping unload the cargo. They brought with them everything they thought they’d need. Boxes of first aid supplies along with emergency medicine, antibiotics, and their own food supplies were crated out.
Dawn was just starting to spread on the horizon. The humid heat of the Caribbean felt mildly uncomfortable on Monica’s back. Other than Walt, she didn’t know any of the other nurses or doctors on their team. They’d met in LA before taking off. Most had their heads in their iPods or on movies on the first flight. Tina, the only newbie aside from Monica, stood beside her outside the plane as they met the Jamaican officials by the cargo doors.
“You ready for this?” Tina asked.
“Doubt it. You?”
“Until we’ve both said we’ve done this… exactly this… I doubt either of us are ready.”
Tina pointed to a pallet of boxes that were painfully familiar to an ER nurse. “What are those?”
Monica’s back teeth ground together. “Body bags.”
Tina’s face went pale. “Oh.”
The medical staff was shuffled off to another part of the runway. They’d landed in Kingston. They would be helicoptered into the Ocho Rios area and spread out from there in various means of transportation that would manage to traverse the damage.
Monica had never been on a helicopter. In truth, heights and she had an understanding… on second thought, they didn’t. She managed airplanes because there was a strange safety inside the metal tube with wings. Out in the open… on a ledge? No. She didn’t even have a desire to see the Grand Canyon. That massive ditch did nothing for her hormones.