"Skillful medical drama keeps the suspense on high and the romance on a low but certain boil"
Reviewed by Patricia Woodside
Posted July 2, 2010
Inspirational Mystery | Suspense
ER charge nurse Erin Quinn is off duty when the emergency
room is besieged by farm workers suffering suspicious
symptoms. Fire department captain Scott McKenna and his
crew are called in to assist with handling the media. When
Erin arrives, she and Scott immediately butt heads,
something that becomes an ongoing event in their
relationship. Since they don't see eye to eye, it helps
that neither of them wants to be in a relationship right
now. Erin is taking care of her recently widowed
grandmother, and Scott, still reeling from a family tragedy,
is looking for work as far from the San Francisco Bay area
as possible.
Candace Calvert does an excellent job of keeping the
suspense high and the romance on a low but certain boil in
this high stakes medical drama. I didn't even realize there
had been a book one in the Mercy Hospital series until I was
at least halfway through this story, and that's a good
thing. Calvert does an excellent job of keeping the reader
in the now, providing just enough detail about past events
for understanding, making this installment of the series a
credible standalone read.
The weaving of the subplots, all tentacles off the main
plot, was skillfully done, and Calvert made it easy to
believe that Erin and Scott would eventually have their
happily-ever-after, even if neither of the two of them could
see its possibility.
DISASTER STATUS will be enjoyed by fans of romance,
suspense, and medical dramas alike.
SUMMARY
Charge nurse Erin Quinn escaped personal turmoil to work on
the peaceful California coast. But when a hazardous material
spill places Pacific Mercy Hospital on disaster status and
stresses staff, she’s put to the test. And thrown into
conflict with the fire department’s handsome incident
commander, who thinks her strategy is out of line.
Fire
Captain Scott McKenna has felt the toxic effects of tragedy;
he’s learned to go strictly by the book to advance his
career, heal his family, and protect his wounded heart. When
he’s forced to team with the passionately determined ER
charge nurse, sparks fly. As they work to save lives, can
they handle the attraction kindled between them . . .
without getting burned?
ExcerptChapter One
Fire captain Scott McKenna bolted through the doors of
Pacific Mercy ER, his boots thudding and heart pounding as
the unconscious child began to stiffen and jerk in his arms.
He cradled her close as her small spine arched and her head
thumped over and over against his chest. “Need help here.
Seizure!”
“This way.” A staff person beckoned. “The code room.
Someone page respiratory therapy stat!”
Scott jogged behind a trio of staff in green scrubs to a
glassed-in room, laid the child on a gurney, and stepped
back, his breath escaping in a rush of relief. He swiped a
trickle of sweat from his forehead and tried to catch a
glimpse of the girl’s face. He’d swept her up too fast to
get a good look at her. Now, with merciful distance,
Scott’s heart tugged. Six or seven years old with long black
braids, frilly clusters of hair ribbons, little hoop
earrings, she looked disturbingly pale despite her olive
skin. Her dark eyes rolled upward, unfocused, as the ER team
closed in to suction her airway, start oxygen, and cut away
her flowered top and pants.
The alarms of the cardiac monitor beeped as a technician
attached gelled electrodes to her tiny chest. Thankfully,
the seizure ended, although saliva—foamy as a salted garden
snail—still bubbled from her parted lips.
Scott inhaled slowly, the air a sour mix of illness,
germicidal soap, and anxious perspiration. He thought of his
nephew, Cody, lying in a pediatrics bed two floors above.
The ER physician, a vaguely familiar woman, gestured to
a nurse. “Get an IV and pull me some labs. I’ll need a
quick glucose check and a rectal temp. Let’s keep lorazepam
handy in case she starts up again. What’s her O2
saturation?”
“It’s 98 percent on the non-rebreather mask, Dr.
Stathos.”
Leigh Stathos. Golden Gate Mercy Hospital.
Scott nodded, recognizing her—and the irony. She left
San Francisco. I’ve applied for a job there . . .
and everywhere else.
“Good. Now let’s see if I can get a medic report.” Dr.
Stathos whirled to face Scott, her expression indicating
she was trying to place him as well. Her gaze flickered to
his badge. “Oh yes. McKenna. Didn’t recognize you for a
second there. So what’s the history? And where’s the rest
of your crew? Are they sending you guys out solo now?”
“No. But no crew. And no report. I was here as a
visitor, until some guy waved me down in the parking lot. I
took one look at this girl and decided to scoop and run.”
Scott nodded toward a woman crying near the doorway. “That
could be family. They were in the truck with her.”
“Seizure history?”
“Don’t know. My Spanish isn’t the best. I think they
said ‘sick’ and ‘vomiting,’ but—”
One of the nurses called out for the doctor. “She’s
starting to twitch again. IV’s in, and the blood glucose is
good at 84. No fever. How much lorazepam are you going to
want? She weighs about 20 kilos.”
Dr. Stathos moved back to the gurney. “We’ll start with
one milligram slowly. But let me get a look at her first,
listen to her lungs, and check her eyes.” She looked up as a
blonde nurse appeared in the doorway. “Yes, Sandy?”
“Sorry, Doctor. I couldn’t get much, but her name’s Ana
Galvez. Six years old. No meds, no allergies, and no prior
seizure history. I think. There’s a language barrier, and I
don’t have an official interpreter yet. But thought you
should know I’ve got a dozen more people signing in for
triage, all with gastric complaints and headaches. The
parking lot’s full of farm trucks, and—” She stopped as the
child began a second full-blown seizure.
Two respiratory therapists rushed through the doorway.
Scott tensed. A dozen more patients? Then his Spanish
was good enough to have understood one last thing the
terrified family had said before he took off running with
their child: “Hay muchos más enfermos”—There are
many more sick people.
He glanced back at the child convulsing on the gurney.
What was going on?
***
Muscle it. Punch through it. Control it. Be bigger than
the bag.
Erin Quinn’s fist connected in one last spectacular,
round-winning right hook, slamming the vinyl speed bag
against the adjacent wall. And causing a tsunami in her
grandmother’s goldfish tank. Water sluiced over the side.
“Whoa! Hang on, buddy. I’ve got you.” She dropped to her
knees, steadying the tank with her red leather gloves.
Everything she’d done in the last six months was focused on
keeping Iris Quinn safe, secure, and happy, and now she’d
nearly KO’d the woman’s only pet.
Erin watched the bug-eyed goldfish’s attempts to ride
out the wave action. She knew exactly how he felt. Her own
situation was equally unsettling: thirty-one and living
with her grandmother and a geriatric goldfish named Elmer
Fudd in a five-hundred-square-foot beach house. With two
mortgages and a stubborn case of shower mold. She caught a
whiff of her latest futile bout with bleach and grimaced.
But moving back to Pacific Point was the best option for
her widowed grandmother, emotionally as well as
financially. Erin was convinced of that, even if her
grandmother was still skeptical . . . and the rest
of the family dead set against it. Regardless, Erin was
determined to put the feisty spark back in Nana’s eyes, and
she had found the change surprisingly good for herself as
well. After last year’s frustrating heartaches, being back
in a house filled with warm memories felt a lot like coming
home. She needed that more than she’d known.
Erin tugged at a long strand of her coppery hair and
smiled. The fact that her grandmother was down at the
chamber of commerce to inquire about volunteer work was
proof they were finally on the right track. Meanwhile, she
had the entire day off from the hospital. March sunshine;
capris instead of nursing scrubs; time to catch up with her
online course work, jog on the beach, and dawdle at the
fish market with her grandmother.
She turned at the sound of her cell phone’s Rocky theme
ring tone, then struggled, teeth against laces, to remove a
glove in time to answer.
She grabbed the phone and immediately wished she hadn’t.
The caller display read Pacific Mercy ER.
“Yes?”
“Ah, great. We caught you.”
“Not really,” Erin said, recognizing the relief charge
nurse’s voice and glancing hopefully toward the door. “In
fact, I was just heading out.”
“Dr. Stathos said she’s sorry, but she needs you here.
Stat. We’ve got kind of a mess.”
Mess? Erin’s breath escaped like a punctured
balloon. In the ER, a mess could mean anything. All of it
bad. She’d heard the TV news reports of a single-engine
plane crash early this morning, but the pilot had been
pronounced dead on the scene, and there were no other
victims. The hospital shouldn’t be affected. Then
. . . “What’s going on?”
“Eighteen sick farm workers,” the nurse explained,
raising her voice over a cacophony of background noise.
“Maybe a few more now; they keep coming in. We’re running
out of gurneys, even in the hallway.”
“Sick with what?” Erin asked. The sheer number of
patients qualified as a multicasualty disaster, but only if
it were a motor vehicle accident, an explosion, or a
similar tragedy.
“Dr. Stathos isn’t sure. But she’s thinking maybe food
poisoning. They’re all from the same ranch. Everyone’s
vomiting, and—”
“It’s a real mess,” Erin finished, sighing. “I got that
part. But how come the ambulances are bringing them all to
us? Dispatch should be sending some to Monterey.”
“They’re not in ambulances. They’re arriving in work
vehicles. A couple of guys were even sprawled out on a
flatbed truck. They’re lucky no one rolled onto the highway.
The police are at the ranch investigating, but meanwhile
we’re overwhelmed. And of course the media got wind of it,
so now we have reporters showing up. You know how
aggressive they get. I’m sorry, but I feel like I’m in over
my head with this whole thing.”
The nurse was new at taking charge, and Erin remembered
how scary that felt when things went south in the ER.
Monday shifts were usually fairly tame, but this sounded
like . . . “Tell the nursing supervisor I’m on my
way in and that we’ll probably need to go on disaster
status and . . . Hold on a second, would you?”
She yanked off her other glove and strode, phone to her
ear, toward the miniscule closet she shared with her
grandmother. “Close the clinic and use that for overflow.
Get security down there to help control things, the
chaplain too. And see if the fire department can spare us
some manpower.”
Erin pulled a set of camouflage-print scrubs from a
hanger, then began peeling off her bike shorts with one
hand. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Just need to take a
quick shower and leave my grandmother a note.” And kiss
my free day good-bye?
No, she wasn’t going to think that way. As a full-time
charge nurse, the welfare of the ER staff was a huge
priority. Besides, Leigh Stathos wouldn’t haul her in on her
day off if it weren’t important. Erin had dealt with far
worse things. Like that explosion at the day care center
near Sierra Mercy Hospital last year. In comparison, food
poisoning wasn’t such a big deal, even two dozen cases.
Messy, yes. Life-altering, no. Central service would find
more basins, she’d help start a few IVs, they’d give nausea
meds and plenty of TLC, and they’d get it all under
control.
“No problemo,” she murmured as she hung up, then
realized the inarticulate phrase was pretty much the extent
of her Spanish. She made a mental note to be sure they had
enough interpreters. Interpreters, basins, more manpower,
and a full measure of TLC to patients—and her staff. That
should do it.
Ten minutes later she snagged an apple for the road,
wrote Nana a note, and stowed her boxing gloves on the rack
beneath the TV. She wouldn’t need battle gear for this extra
stint in the ER. And then she’d be back home. In a couple
of hours, tops.
***
When Erin turned in to the hospital parking lot, she
realized she’d forgotten her name badge. Good thing
security knew her. Her eyes widened as she approached the
ambulance entrance. She braked to a stop, her mouth dropping
open as she surveyed the scene at the emergency
department’s back doors: four dusty and battered trucks—one
indeed a flatbed—at least three news vans, a fire truck, an
ambulance, and several police cars. She quickly put the
Subaru in park, then opened her door and squinted up at the
sky. Oh, c’mon, was that a helicopter? A plane crash wasn’t
big enough news today?
Several nurses stood outside the doors holding
clipboards and dispensing yellow plastic emesis basins to a
restless line of a least a dozen patients in long sleeves,
heavy trousers, and work boots. Including one elderly man
who seemed unsteady on his feet as he mopped his forehead
with a faded bandanna. A young uniformed firefighter
paramedic, the husband of their ER triage nurse, was also
helping out. Good, Erin’s request for extra manpower had
been accepted.
Reporters in crisp khakis and well-cut jackets leaned
across what appeared to be a hastily erected
rope-and-sawhorse barricade. It was manned by a firefighter
in a smoke-stained turnout jacket with the broadest
shoulders she’d ever seen. And an expression as stony as
Rushmore.
Erin locked the car, grabbed her tote bag, and jogged
into the wind toward the barricade, trying to place the
daunting firefighter. Tall, with close-cropped blond hair,
a sturdy jaw, and a rugged profile. He turned, arms crossed,
to talk with someone across the barricade, so she couldn’t
see all of his face. But he wasn’t a full-time medic; she
knew them all. An engine company volunteer? Maybe, but she
hadn’t met him. She was sure of that. Because, even from
what little she’d seen, this man would have been memorable.
Her face warmed ridiculously as she slowed to a walk.
But her growing curiosity about his identity was a moot
point. There wasn’t time for that now. She needed to slip
between those sawhorses, hustle into the ER, touch base with
the relief charge nurse, brainstorm with Leigh Stathos, and
see what she could do to help straighten out this mess.
Erin stopped short as the big firefighter turned
abruptly, blocking her way. “Excuse me,” she said, sweeping
wind-tossed hair from her face as she peered up at him.
Gray. His eyes were granite gray. “I need to get
past you. Thanks. Appreciate it.” She attempted to squeeze
by him, catching a faint whiff of citrusy cologne
. . . mixed with smoke.
“Don’t thank me. And stop right where you are.” He
stepped in front of her, halting her in her tracks. There
was the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth. Not a
smile. He crossed his arms again. “No one can come through
here. Those are the rules. And I go by the book.
Sorry.”
By the book? As if she didn’t have policies to
follow? Erin forced herself to take a deep breath.
Lord, show me the humor in this. Called to work on
her day off and then denied access. It was funny if you
thought about it. She tried to smile and managed a pinched
grimace. This was about as funny as the mold in her shower.
She met his gaze, noticing that he had a small scar just
below his lower lip. Probably from somebody’s fist.
“I work here, Captain . . . McKenna,” Erin
explained, reading the name stenciled on his jacket. “In
fact—” she patted the left breast pocket of her scrubs,
then remembered her missing name badge—“I’m the day shift
charge nurse. But I forgot my badge.”
“I see,” he said, uncrossing his arms. He pointed toward
the trio of reporters leaning over the barricade. “See that
reporter over there—the tall woman with the microphone and
bag of Doritos? Ten minutes ago she pulled a white coat out
of one of those news vans and tried to tell me she was a
doctor on her way to an emergency delivery. Premature
twins.”
“But that’s unbelievable. That’s—”
“Exactly why I’m standing here,” the captain
interrupted. “So without hospital ID or someone to
corroborate, I can’t let you in.”
Her jaw tightened, and she glanced toward the ER doors.
“One of your paramedics is back there somewhere; Chuck
knows me. He’s married to my triage nurse. Find him and ask
him.”
McKenna shook his head. “Can’t leave this spot.”
“Then call.” Erin pointed to the cell phone on his belt.
“Better yet, ask for Dr. Leigh Stathos. Tell her I’m here.
She’ll verify my identity. The number is—”
“I’ve got it,” he said, lifting his phone and watching
her intently as he made an inquiry. He gave a short laugh.
“Yes. A redhead in what looks like Army fatigues
. . . Ah, let’s see . . . green eyes.
And about—” his gaze moved discreetly over her—“maybe five
foot nine?”
Erin narrowed her eyes. What was this, a lineup?
The captain lowered the phone. “Your name?”
“Erin Quinn,” she said, feeling like she should extend
her hand or something. She resisted the impulse.
“Hmm. Yes,” he said into the phone. “I see. Okay, then.”
He cleared his throat and disconnected the call.
She looked at him. “Did you get what you needed?”
“Well,” he said, reaching down to detach the rope from a
sawhorse, “it seems you’re who you say you are. And that I
shouldn’t expect a commendation for detaining you.
Apparently it’s because of your request that I’m here. Not
that I wanted to be. I still have men out on the plane
crash, but . . .” He hesitated and then flashed
the barest of smiles. Though fleeting, it transformed his
face from Rushmore cold to almost human. “Go on inside,
Erin Quinn. You’re late.” His expression returned to
chiseled stone. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. But
that’s the way this has to work.”
“No problemo.” Erin hitched her tote bag over her
shoulder and stepped through the barricade. Then she turned
back. “What’s your first name, McKenna?”
“Scott.”
She extended her hand and was surprised by the warmth of
his. “Well, then. Good job, Scott. But going by the book
isn’t always the bottom line. Try to develop a little trust,
will you? We’re all on the same team.”
Twenty minutes later, Erin finished checking on her staff
and rejoined Leigh Stathos in the code room. They both
looked up as the housekeeping tech arrived at the doorway.
“You wanted these?” Sarge asked.
“Yes. Great. Thank you.” Erin nodded at the tall,
fortysomething man wearing tan scrubs, his brown hair
pulled back into a short ponytail and arms full of plastic
emesis basins. “Put those in the utility room, would you?
And I think we could use some extra sheets and gowns too.
If you don’t mind.”
His intense eyes met hers for an instant before glancing
down. “Yes, ma’am, double time.”
Erin smiled at Sarge’s familiar and somber half salute,
then watched him march away, his powerful frame moving in
an awkward hitch to accommodate his artificial leg. She
returned her attention to Leigh and the dark-eyed child on
the gurney beside them. The ventilator, overriding her
natural breathing, whooshed at regular intervals, filling
the girl’s lungs. “She had two seizures but none before
today?”
“Looks that way.” The ER physician, her long mahogany
hair swept back loosely into a clip, reached down and
lifted the sheet covering the child. “But see how her
muscles are still twitchy? And her pupils are constricted.
I’ll be honest: I don’t like this. The only thing I know
for sure is that the X-ray shows an aspiration pneumonia.
Probably choked while vomiting on the truck ride in. I’ve
started antibiotics. Art’s coming in,” she added, referring
to the on-call pediatrician. “And I paged the public health
officer.”
“Good.” Erin’s brows scrunched. It was puzzling; an hour
after arrival, Ana Galvez remained unresponsive, her skin
glistening with perspiration. Though Leigh had inserted an
endotracheal tube and the child was suctioned frequently,
she was still producing large amounts of saliva. Her heart
rate, barely 70, was surprisingly slow for her age. She’d
had several episodes of diarrhea. Poor kid. What
happened to you?
Erin glanced toward the main room of the ER, grateful
things appeared to be settling down out there. “I still
don’t get this, though. Ana came from home? Not the ranch
where everybody got sick?”
“Yes, but—” Leigh fiddled with the stethoscope draped
across the shoulders of her steel gray scrub top—“she’d
been there earlier. Felt sick after lunch and her father
took her home.”
“So that goes right back to the food. But salmonella
takes time. Still, the symptoms fit. Triage says most of
the patients are complaining of headache, nausea, cramps,
and diarrhea.” Erin checked the monitor: heart rate 58.
Why so slow? “What did they eat?”
Leigh sighed. “Sack lunches. Every one different. That
doesn’t fit at all. I wanted it to be huge tubs of chicken
stew that everyone shared. That would make sense. But
Sandy’s seen twenty-six patients in triage now, and the
story from everybody sounds the same: picking strawberries
since 6 a.m., lunch together around eleven, and—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but something’s . . .
wrong.” Erin and Leigh turned at the sound of the triage
nurse’s voice at the doorway.
Erin’s eyes widened. The triage nurse looked awful—pale,
sweaty, teary-eyed. Sandy was holding her hand to her head,
trembling. What happened?
Before she could ask, Sandy’s eyelids fluttered and her
knees gave way.
What do you think about this review?
Comments
1 comment posted.
Re: Skillful medical drama keeps the suspense on high and the romance on a low but certain boil
Thank you for this thoughtful
review of Disaster Status--I'm
honored to have you and the
Fresh Fiction readers "scrub in"
with the Mercy Hospital series.
(Candace Calvert 8:28pm July 2, 2010)
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