The runner was clearly more agitated with the arrival of the policeman and the EMTs. He was talking loudly, gesticulating madly, and struggling to get to his feet. Pia kept her hand on his shoulder to keep him in a sitting position.
“Hey, sir, take it easy. What’s your problem?” said one of the EMTs.
“He doesn’t seem to speak much English, if any,” said Pia. “He’s very agitated.”
“I can see that,” said the EMT. “We can’t take him to the hospital if he doesn’t want to go. I mean, he looks normal.”
“He has to go. He wasn’t breathing for I don’t know how long. We have to check his brain function and try to figure out why his heart stopped. I’m telling you, when I first got here the man was dead as far as I could tell.”
“Bill’s right,” said the police officer, indicating the EMT. “If he refuses treatment…”
“I think he works at the same company as I do, Nano. You’ve heard of Nano, no doubt.”
“Obviously,” the policeman said.
“He’s wearing the same jogging clothes as I am, as you can see. We’re all given this equipment as employees of Nano.”
The EMT named Bill stepped forward with a blood-pressure cuff, but the runner yelled at him and tried to pull away from Pia’s grasp.
“We’re trying to help,” Pia said to the man. “We have to take you to the hospital.”
Pia had been kneeling by the man’s side and now stood up. With Pia’s restraining hand gone, the runner tried to stand, but his knees gave way. Some of the fight went out of him.
“I’ll come with you,” said Pia to the man, indicating herself and pointing to the ambulance and making driving motions. She pointed to the Nano logo on her sweatshirt and then to the one on his. It was the best she could do. The man nodded, as if comprehending. The EMTs then tried to get him onto the collapsed gurney, but the man refused. Instead they helped him first to his feet, something he insisted on, and then into the back of the ambulance. Inside the ambulance they secured him to the gurney. At that point he was no longer resisting, but Pia could see that the fear remained in his eyes. When one of the EMTs jumped out to get in the driver’s seat, Pia climbed in the back.
As the ambulance started and headed back down the mountain, Pia could see that the patient, although calmer than earlier, was still agitated. She wondered what he was so afraid of. She also wondered, if he worked at Nano, which wasn’t a given, what department he worked for. He didn’t look much like a scientist, but what did she know? Since he apparently could only speak a couple of words of English, he seemed like a stranger in a strange land. To try to calm him, she grasped his hand. He seemed grateful. He squeezed hers in return.
CHAPTER 13
As the ambulance bumped its way down toward Boulder proper, Pia continued to try to communicate with the runner. While Pia distracted the man, the EMT riding with them in the back of the ambulance used the opportunity to take a blood-pressure reading, pulse, and body temperature.
“Do you work at Nano?” she asked the patient. She pointed to the logo on the man’s sweatshirt. “I work at Nano,” she continued, placing her hand flat on her chest. Unfortunately the charade got no verbal response whatsoever.
“Holy smokes,” the EMT said, looking down, raising his eyebrows in surprise at the gauge on the ear thermometer. “His temperature is almost a hundred five.” As if he didn’t believe the thermometer, he put his hand on the man’s forehead. “It must be right. He’s hotter than hell!”
“What about his blood pressure and pulse?” Pia asked. From feeling his skin earlier, she had assumed the man’s temperature was elevated.
“They are entirely normal,” the EMT technician said.
“What about heat stroke?” Pia said. “Maybe we should try to cool him down.”
The EMT communicated the vital signs to the driver, who in turn contacted the ER physicians. The EMT in the back got an ice pack and offered it to the runner. The man looked at it questioningly. The EMT put it on his own head as a demonstration, then handed it over. The runner held it to his head and seemed to appreciate it.
“I don’t get it,” Pia said to the EMT. “He must work at Nano like I do, but his English is nonexistent. “By the way, my name is Pia.”
“Mine is David. Bill is driving. Nice to meet you.”
“How long before we reach the hospital?”
“Ten minutes or so,” said David, and he confirmed it with Bill.
Pia undid the Velcro and took her phone from her arm. She made a call. As it went through she had to brace herself against the wall because of the lurching and swaying of the ambulance. The siren was not being used since there was no traffic and the patient appeared to be remarkably stable.
“Mariel. It’s Pia. I’m calling from my cell phone. I was on my run, and I came across a man dressed in Nano running gear collapsed on the road.”
“A man? Who is he? Is he conscious? Where is he now?” Mariel sounded surprisingly anxious.
“I don’t know his name. He’s conscious, but he doesn’t speak any English. He has no identification with him. We’re in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Pia checked the screen to see if they were still connected. It seemed they were, since there was a good signal.
“Mariel, are you still there?”
“Pia, listen to me, this is very important. Where are you going?”
“Hold on, Mariel. David, where are we going?”
“Boulder Memorial in Aurora,” said David.
“Boulder Mem—”
“Right, I heard. Boulder Memorial. What’s the man’s status right now? Is he conscious?”
“He’s conscious but confused and paranoid. The problem is, as I said, he doesn’t speak a word of English.”
“Okay! Here’s the plan: I’ll meet you at the hospital. I’ll try to be right behind you. Listen. Pia, don’t let the ER staff touch this man. They’re not qualified. I repeat, no one is to try to examine him, do you understand?”
“I heard you, Mariel, but, no, I don’t understand. When I came upon him he’d been in cardiac arrest for God knows how long. He wasn’t breathing with no pulse. He’s breathing now, but they’re going to have to examine him. It would be malpractice not to do so. What exactly do you want me to say?”
Mariel didn’t answer Pia’s question, so Pia again pulled her phone away from her ear and looked at the screen. The connection had been broken. Not sure why the call had been terminated, Pia tried to call back, but it went directly to voice mail. Mariel had apparently ended the call abruptly.
Pia strapped her phone back on her arm. Did Mariel really say that the man shouldn’t be examined? Pia looked at the runner, who was still acting fearful. While Pia had been on the phone with Mariel, David had tried to run an EKG, but the man had pulled off the EKG leads. The man wouldn’t even let David take off his sweatshirt or start an intravenous line. On the positive side, at least he wasn’t trying to get off the gurney or loosen the buckle across his abdomen.
David sat back down on the chair next to the man. For the moment he was content to complete the ride to the ER without trying to do anything else, as the man wasn’t in any obvious medical distress, other than his extreme anxiety. The ice pack must have felt good to him because at least that was still on his head.
The man’s agitation increased when the ambulance arrived at the hospital and backed up to the unloading bay. He began babbling to himself and looked around continually, as if he were a caged wild animal. The man barely allowed himself to be wheeled into the ER, where he was sequestered in a room separated from the main emergency area because his high fever suggested he might be infectious. But at that point the man had had enough, and he started to undo the buckle restraining him. When he was prevented from doing this, he let loose a rapid flow of angry Chinese. He wouldn’t let any of the nurses near him. It wasn’t until Pia stepped up to him from the periphery, where she had been standing, that the man calmed down a degree.