“I’ll go with her,” Cora spoke up.
“Actually, can Dad come with me?”
There was a moment of stunned silence from her family until Cora spoke up. “Sure. Of course he can.”
Erin gave her mother a grateful smile, then turned her gaze to her father. The light from the streetlights flickered across his face, revealing his slack jaw and wide eyes. “Dad,” she called out to him and held up her hand for him to take.
Joel stepped in her direction as if he was in a trance, but when their hands connected, he grinned lovingly down at his daughter. The paramedics lifted the stretcher then and rolled it into the back of the ambulance. The vocal paramedic climbed into the back along with Joel while the other paramedic headed for the driver’s seat.
“We’ll meet you guys at the hospital,” Cora called out before the doors were shut. A few seconds later, the siren sounded, and the vehicle rolled out of the parking lot and headed for the highway.
“How are you feeling?” Joel asked a few minutes into the drive.
“Honestly?” Erin turned to ask her father. He gave a sharp nod. “It feels like someone’s hammering away against my temple, and my foot and leg hurt like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Other than that, I’m quite peachy,” she replied in a blasé manner.
Joel chuckled. “In other words, you’re screaming on the inside,” he surmised.
“You got it.” Erin gave him two thumbs-up.
Joel’s features softened. “You’re going to be okay,” he spoke convincingly.
“Thanks, Dad.” She smiled.
“For what?”
“For never giving up on me.”
“I could never give up on you, Baby Bear. You are my heart,” he spoke with much emotion. He reached over to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I can never give up my heart.”
Erin felt love bubble up and over in her heart as she and her dad rekindled their relationship.
Less than fifteen minutes later, Erin was being wheeled through the lobby of emergency room.
“Twenty-four-year-old female suffering from a concussion after a ten-foot fall, possibly bruised ribs, and a broken leg and foot,” the paramedic relayed to a young female in scrubs.
“Okay, put her in room three,” the woman instructed. Joel followed the men as they rolled her stretcher down the hall to a door on the right. They proceeded to lift her, placing her on the bed, then left.
“Hi, Miss Avlon. I’m Doctor Kim,” an Asian man in a white coat over his white shirt tucked into black pants, and a stethoscope over his neck greeted her as he walked through the door.“I’ll be examining the extent of your injuries this evening. I heard you took a hard tumble.”
“Um, yes. Off a cliff,” Erin replied.
“Wow. I can’t imagine how terrifying that must have been for you,” the man responded as he held her head between his hands and turned it from left to right.“Does this hurt?”
“A little. My neck feels stiff,” she informed him.
The man nodded as he moved lower. “How about this?” he asked, tapping under her ribs.
“Ow,” Erin cried out as the pain radiated throughout her chest.
He then went on to inspect her leg, noting the swelling around her ankle. He stepped back to write on the pad he brought before looking up at her in seriousness. “It seems you have a cracked rib and a fractured ankle. In relation to the pounding in your head and the tension in the neck, it’s common for people to feel discomfort there after a nasty fall, but I’m requesting an MRI and that your chest and ankle be X-rayed.”
Erin sighed dejectedly at the revelation of the extent of her injuries. She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to see him grinning encouragingly back at her.
“Everything is going to be okay.” He smiled.
For the next couple of hours, she was wheeled around the hospital to complete the tests and have her chest bandaged and a cast put on her ankle. She was relieved when it was revealed that there was no damage to her skull or brain. However, they wanted to keep her overnight for monitoring.
“I’m going to update your mother and the others,” her father informed her.
