Reflection

254 words
         Matt couldn't believe it was this hard. He passed all of his exams, graduated top of his class, started working right away. The textbooks talked about dealing with it. Professors gave speeches. Now, here he sat facing it first hand.
         The accident sent a young couple to the emergency room. Someone crossed the centerline and struck them head on. The man was in stable condition, recovering quietly. The woman, on the other had, had a severed spinal cord. The team rushed her into his xray suite as they assessed her injuries. Matt had experienced bad accidents, but this time was different. The woman was conscious and her eyes never left Matt. It made him uncomfortable at first, but before long he met her gaze steadily.
         "Don't worry, everything will be fine. The best team around is working on you."
         She looked at him over the oxygen mask. He knew he was probably lying about the first part, things were far from fine. He knew that she knew it.
         She never made it out of surgery.
         Matt sat in the empty suite, remembering the last thing he said to her. Everyone said that losing your first case was hard, but this was crushing. Matt sat in the silence and offered a silent prayer for the woman and her family.
         As he finished and wiped a tear away, the loudspeaker announced the next arrivals into the E.R. Matt jumped to his feet and rushed to the side of his team, ready to face the next case.