The Mountain
The hospital was nestled in the rolling foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The jagged horizon had gravity -- it pulled you in. Here, the trees grow deep against harsh winds, and the summer bloom is brief.
It was winter. People came from all over the world. Some to take pictures. Others to hike, climb -- and conquer. Sometimes, danger wears a beautiful face.
The adventurers worried me the most. It was avalanche season. And the frozen mountain decides who goes -- and who stays.
My pager buzzed. A rewarming case for hypothermia -- and I had to make the call. If it was a “go,” I’d place drainage tubes into the heart, connecting them to the heart-lung machine -- the cardiac surgeon’s workbench. It could warm even the coldest blood.
If not? We’d stop. We’d declare death. And as every doctor knows, you aren’t dead until you’re warm and dead. But how we define can also defile.
This one was cold. No heartbeat since they dug her out of the snow an eternal two hours before.
She was a seasoned mountain climber from a distant country. Her sole traveling partner was still missing. We had no other information.
A body with no person.
The cold ones from the city would rewarm, wake up, and walk out the front doors on their own two feet -- forgetting everything. But the buried ones were different.
Just enough would come back to give us a ray of hope. So, most of the time, you just had to try.
But there is a narrow place where wielding the scalpel -- even in hope -- becomes desecration. And there is no dignity in warming the dead.
The emergency transport team journeyed from the face of the mountain. They were always enthusiastic. Selling the case, they gave their best blood numbers first -- speaking fast with clinical momentum.
Stopping now would be a betrayal. But most signs spoke of death. I wondered if some are meant to stay buried.
The ICU was the muster point. We huddled to share the facts. People wanted to know. All eyes were on me. Was this the end of the line? It was my call. But there was little hope.
You develop an instinct over time about who will live and who will die. You choose to act -- for life. Or decide -- for death. Either way, you become part of it. And a shadow is cast.
But hearts are strong and determined. And when a still heart suddenly comes alive, even the most seasoned feel a flutter inside.
It is rebirth. Sacred.
So I said it sharp and sure -- like a gunshot at the starting line. Because a surgeon can be wrong, but never uncertain. Let’s go.
The surgical team scattered in all directions. They would fight fiercely through the night -- and never complain. Pure purpose. Unflinching dedication.
The dance began. Tubes were placed, dark blood filled the circuit. And then the pump took over. The hum too low to hear -- but you could feel it, like being underwater.
And then we wait. The hardest part is not doing. Allowing fate.
The body temperature was rising. It could happen any moment now. I was fixated on the monitor. A single blip would mean life.
Flatline.
My eyes shifted to the window. The horizon loomed -- rising and falling like an ECG. Was it taking too long? Come on.
We can’t quit now. She can’t quit now. I can’t quit now.
She never came back.
She was warm – and dead.
The team dismantled the scene. No one looked at her swollen body, stark under the bright fluorescent light. I did – and felt a deep shame – ancestral and punishing.
She had already died in a snowy grave. And we dug her up. I knew it in my heart.
The mountain had decided. We only act in its long shadow.
Driving in silence, falling snow drifted and shimmered in the beam of my headlights, obscuring my way home. On nights like this, the snow falls slower. Time bends. I could feel my body, weary and electric.
Inside, the kids were sleeping in warm beds beneath fuzzy blankets, their breath hot and rhythmic. With the mountain’s permission, they would wake at first light -- a pink hue over its snowy peaks.
I would still be awake.
By morning, it was news. I read her story. I saw her face – a person, at last. Peaceful. Frozen in the frame.
I drove back to work. The roads were freshly plowed. The sky was a deep, clear blue.
The mountain stood proud in the rising sun. It does not bear the burden of decision. We do.
And that night, I did.
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