Thirteen years ago, I walked into my shift at the ER as a brand-new doctor. By the time the sun came up, I\u2019d walked out as somebody\u2019s father\u2014and I didn\u2019t even know it yet.<\/p>\n
Back then, I was 26, six months out of med school, still convincing my hands not to shake when things got loud and bloody. We were just settling into the usual chaos of a graveyard shift when the paramedics burst through the doors with a wreck that looked like it had taken out someone\u2019s entire world.<\/p>\n
Two stretchers. White sheets already pulled over still faces.<\/p>\n
And a third gurney carrying a three-year-old girl with big, wild eyes and a seatbelt bruise across her chest.<\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t crying. She was too far past that. Her gaze jittered around the room like it was trying to find someplace familiar and finding nothing.<\/p>\n
Her parents were gone before the ambulance even reached us.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t supposed to be the one who stayed with her. I had charts, labs, other patients. But when the nurses tried to move her, she grabbed my arm with both hands and clung like I was the last solid thing in the universe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m Avery. I\u2019m scared. Please don\u2019t leave me and go. Please\u2026\u201d she whispered, over and over, as if repeating it might stop the entire world from disappearing.<\/p>\n
I should have stepped away. Instead, I sat down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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