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Zusatztext "Wrenchingly scary...Palmer is reaching the top of a demanding craft." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "This is a novel that manages to scare the socks off the reader while still providing made-for-Hollywood entertainment." --The Globe and Mail! Toronto "Palmer [brings] his fascinating ER procedural knowledge to a fast-paced...narrative." --San Francisco Chronicle Informationen zum Autor Michael Palmer Klappentext In the tiny town of Patience, California, newcomer Dr. Abby Dolan has noticed a frightening syndrome among her emergency room patients. It begins with a baffling, seemingly minor set of symptoms, but builds relentlessly until it plunges its victims into insane, murderous rages. As she searches for clues to this deadly mystery, Abby's superiors make it clear her probing is unwelcome. Soon Abby will learn just how high the cost of the truth may be--and how far someone will go to keep a lethal secret. But she may not find the answer until it's too late to save her patients, her career...her life."Three hundred joules, please...Keep pumping..." Abby Dolan tightened her grip on the defibrillator paddles as she passed them against the front and left side of the man's massive chest. He was in persistent cardiac arrest despite two electrical shocks and medication. His face and upper torso were mottled violet, reflecting inadequate circulation despite the ongoing CPR. Clearly, time was their enemy. "Ready," said the nurse handling the defibrillator console. "Okay everyone, clear!" Abby pressed her thumb down on the square plastic button set in the handle of the right-hand paddle. Instantly, there was a muffled pop and an audible, visible spark from two spots where the paddles and skin did not make perfect contact. The man's body--250 pounds at least--stiffened and arched. His arms snapped upward like whips. Then, just as rapidly, he was still. "Pump, please," Abby said, checking the monitor screen. The paramedic, up on a stool for leverage, wiped the contact gel off the man's chest with a towel, set the heel of his hand over the base of the sternum and resumed his rhythmic compressions. For several seconds there was a slashing up-and-down movement of the tracing on the monitor. But Abby knew from ten years of ER work and countless code ninety-nines that the pattern was artifact, not related to any effective electrical activity of the heart. She glanced up at the code clock started by the charge nurse at the moment of the man's arrival in room three. Nine minutes. So far nothing. Abby had been working in the Patience Regional Hospital for over two weeks now, at once dreading and eagerly awaiting her first code. She had been busy, at times very busy, over those weeks. But no codes. Now it was happening. And "The Professor," as she knew some of the staff were facetiously calling her, was losing. She looked back at the paramedic who was doing the cardiac compressions. Too mechanical. He was well trained, but he was using the technique he had learned on the CPR mannequin, Resusi-Annie. This was a 250-pound bull of a man. Abby pressed her fingertips into Tracy' groin, searching for the femoral-artery pulse that the paramedic should have been generating. Nothing. "Harder, Tom," she said. "Much harder. You're not moving enough blood." "But--" "Please, I know you feel right with what you're doing, but you've got to do it harder. A little faster, too. That's better. That's it. Good. That's it." In addition to Abby, there were three nurses, a respiratory therapist, and the paramedic in the room. At St. John's there would often be that many physicians at a cardiac arrest. If the patient didn't make it, at least they all knew that everything that needed to be thought of had been. "Are those labs back?" ...
