Part 34: Along the Line

During one of my exploratory walks around downtown Baltimore, I heard the throaty whump-whump-whump of a helicopter overhead and looked up to see a Bell Ranger coming in low, headed towards buildings a few blocks away.

I walked down Lombard Street to the UMAB campus, the helicopter growing louder as I neared University Hospital. Rounding the corner at Penn Street, I saw the six-story parking garage on the left. The roar of the helicopter engine emanating from the garage roof echoed between the buildings.

Walking up Penn, I stopped at Redwood and looked to my right. Just as Jon Franklin and Alan Doelp described in , there was the ramp next to the dumpster at the loading dock behind University Hospital, and to the left a set of green double doors. The ambulance was still parked at the loading dock.

I strode up the ramp and through the double doors. Painted on the floor, the wide orange stripe they wrote about. I followed the orange line down the hall past the hospital’s receiving department and around the corner to an elevator.

I looked up and down the hallway, then pressed the elevator button. The door opened, and I pressed the button for the third floor.

The door opened again, and the walls were all pink--calming Pepto-Bismol pink. People scurried back and forth, all wearing pink scrubs.

To one side was a bay of six beds, each one decked out like a surgical suite. There was a flurry of activity around one of the beds.

Holy cow, I’m in Shock Trauma.

I pressed the elevator button again, slid inside, and retraced my steps out of the building.