Chapter 17 - THE DOCTOR WHO SUPPOSEDLY DECLARED US DEAD HAD ASKED FOR AN ULTRASOUNDDr. Adrian Pike had disappeared from Willowbridge after our case.
The news coverage called him:
the physician who pronounced three living patients dead.
His medical license had been temporarily restricted while the board investigated.
I hated him.
That had been easy.
A person made a catastrophic decision.
My children almost entered the ground because of it.
Simple.
Then Maya obtained his original clinical note.
Not the finalized version in the chart.
The audit version.
2:02 p.m.:
Profound bradycardia. Minimal respiratory excursion. Medication effect possible.
2:04:
Request confirmatory ultrasound / continuous ECG.
2:05:
Recommend transfer to tertiary ED if any cardiac activity identified.
That was not someone absolutely convinced we were dead.
At 2:07 the order vanished.
At 2:10 another note appeared under Pike’s name:
No signs of life. Family informed.
Pike denied writing it.
“It’s my login,” he admitted when Maya interviewed him.
“But those aren’t my words.”
“Did you pronounce them dead?” Maya asked.
His answer mattered.
“I said I could not obtain a reliable pulse.”
Not the same thing.
“Did you sign the pronouncement?”
“I signed something.”
“What?”
“A transfer acknowledgment.”
My stomach tightened.
“What transfer?”
“To University Medical Center.”
I looked at Ben.
We had never been transferred to a hospital.
We had been transferred to a funeral home.
Pike continued.
“Willowbridge had no ICU. I wanted them moved.”
“Why didn’t that happen?”
“Mason told me the family declined escalation.”
“What family?”
“Mrs. Whitmore.”
Eleanor.
“Did my husband decline?”
“No.”
“Did I have a DNR?”
“I was told there were directives.”
There were not.
Pike looked sick.
“I should have verified.”
Yes.
No exoneration.
He had allowed somebody else’s certainty to substitute for his own process.
But the story was already changing.
Then he said:
“I left the building at 2:19 to call the receiving hospital from outside because Mason kept interfering.”
“What happened?”
“They had no transfer request.”
“Then?”
“I went back.”
By then—
we were gone.
The funeral home had already taken us.
“Why didn’t you call 911?”
He looked at me.
“I did.”
My breathing stopped.
“There was no 911 call in the record.”
“Not from the facility phone.”
He had called from his personal phone at 2:37.
Dispatch record confirmed.
He reported:
Possible improper removal of three patients with uncertain death determination.
Police arrived at Willowbridge at 2:51.
We were already at the funeral home.
Eleanor told everyone burial would begin almost immediately.
Pike tried to locate the mortuary.
Mason refused to provide the name.
Then Pike made one more call.
To a nurse he knew would be attending the service.
Rachel Moreno.
The nurse who later noticed Hannah’s hand move.
I had spent fourteen months believing Rachel simply saw something nobody else saw.
She had.
May you like
But she was also looking more closely because somebody had warned her:
“If they’re still warm, do not let that coffin close.”
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