Chapter 6 - The Breach
Thomas's monitor flatlined again.
The temporary drain had failed as the tear in his aorta ripped completely open.
"We're out of time!" I shouted.
Dr. Aris looked at the monitor, then at me.
"Get her to OR 4!" he barked at the nurses.
The bureaucracy vanished in an instant, replaced by the synchronized chaos of emergency medicine.
They sprinted down the hall with Thomas's gurney, and I ran right beside them.
A nurse shoved a sterile scrub pack into my hands as we reached the surgical floor.
I scrubbed in with aggressive speed, the harsh soap burning my skin.
When I backed through the OR doors, the room was fully prepped.
Thomas was on the table, his chest painted with iodine.
Dr. Wells was in the observation gallery above, standing next to my father and Phoebe.
Through the glass, I could see Gerald holding Phoebe as she wept.
"Scalpel," I said.
The scrub nurse slapped the instrument into my palm.
I made the long, vertical incision down the center of Thomas's chest.
"Sternial saw," I requested.
The high-pitched whine of the saw filled the room as I opened his chest cavity.
The sight was a nightmare.
Blood was pooling faster than the suction could remove it.
The aorta, the massive vessel carrying blood from the heart to the body, looked like shredded wet tissue paper.
"We need to put him on cardiopulmonary bypass right now," I ordered.
The perfusionist rushed to connect the tubes that would route Thomas's blood into the heart-lung machine.
"Cannula in," I confirmed. "Start the pump."
The machine hummed to life, taking over the work of Thomas's failing heart.
I finally had a clear view of the damage.
It was worse than I thought.
The dissection extended down toward the descending aorta, heavily calcified and brittle.
Standard suturing would simply tear the tissue further.
I looked up at the gallery.
Dr. Wells pressed his hands against the glass, his eyes wide with fear as he saw the state of the vessel.
He knew exactly what I was looking at.
"I have to use the modified angle," I muttered under my mask.
I asked for the synthetic graft and the specialized Teflon felt used to reinforce fragile tissue.
I began the painstaking process of cutting away the dead tissue and sewing the artificial tube into place.
Every stitch required absolute perfection.
One millimeter too deep, and I would pierce the pulmonary artery.
One millimeter too shallow, and the graft would blow off under pressure.
We were three hours into the surgery.
My neck was screaming in pain, and my eyes were burning.
"Final suture," I breathed, tying off the knot.
"Take him off bypass. Let's see if it holds."
The perfusionist slowly dialed down the machine.
Blood rushed back into Thomas's heart, swelling the new synthetic graft.
The graft held perfectly.
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I let out a shaky breath, looking up at the gallery to give them a thumbs up.
But before my hand even went up, a massive spark erupted from the bypass machine.
