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Campbell reluctantly allowed her to remove his coat. The left side of his white Redskins T-shirt was soaked with an expanding oval of blood. At the center of the stain was a two-inch slit.
    “Pulse one ten. Pressure ninety over sixty.”
    From the beginning of his medical training, Nick constantly had to suppress the urge to jump in and get to work when a patient was bleeding. As it was, unless there were obvious indications, he still could not bring himself to allow an injured person to continue bleeding while he took maximum, time-consuming precautions against AIDS, such as donning a gown, an extra pair of gloves, and plastic full-face shield.
    “Mike, don’t be frightened. I’m going to glove and then I need to examine you, and quickly.”
    “Where am I?” Campbell rasped.
    Nick and Junie exchanged concerned glances.
    “You came to the Helping Hands medical van,” Junie said. “I’m Junie and this is Dr. Nick Garrity. We’re here to help you.”
    “Is this the hospital?”
    “This is the mobile medical van.”
    Campbell looked wildly about.
    “No hospital.”
    “We’re on your side,” Nick said, as Junie gingerly pulled off the man’s shirt. “Anything we do will be to keep you alive.”
    Nick could tell immediately that there was no way this wound could be properly evaluated outside of an ER, and possibly an OR. The chest cavity could easily hold a lethal amount of blood if the blade had gone through the chest wall. A lobe or an entire lung could have collapsed. He was relieved to see that Campbell’s trachea was midline-an excellent sign that for the moment at least, the lung was still inflated. His nail beds were fairly pink, another good sign.
    “Systolic pressure is still ninety,” Junie said, as if reading Nick’s mind. “He’s having a few extra beats.”
    “Hang in there, Mike,” Nick said. “We’ll explain everything in just a minute.”
    “No hospital,” Campbell said again, his speech marginally thicker than it was before.
    Nick carefully listened with his stethoscope. There were breath sounds out to the chest wall in all fields. He forced himself to take a step back. The knife wound could be nothing, or mortal. He knew that guessing at this point was a shortcut to disaster, but his clinical sense told him the wound was shallow. If so, the man’s low blood pressure, confusion, dilated pupils, and irregular heartbeat were out of proportion to the severity of his injury. Something else was going on.
    “Junie, could you get his record?” he asked, continuing his exam.
    There was no question that Campbell needed transportation to the hospital, and quickly. The trick would be getting him to agree. Nick checked his blood pressure again. Eighty-five. Maybe there was more internal bleeding than he thought. Without asking, he slipped an oxygen cannula into Campbell’s nostrils and turned the flow up to six liters. The man made no attempt to resist. Nick was preparing to start an IV when Junie opened Campbell’s chart and pointed to a section.
    Known heroin and benzo addict… History of multiple overdoses, especially meth… On probation. Terrified of going back to prison.
    “That explains why Mike is so reluctant to let us take him to the ER,” Junie said. “Is that right, Mike?”
    Nick could feel the tension in the man’s body.
    “Mike, I need to put an IV in your arm to give you fluid and medicine. Your blood pressure is really low.”
    Campbell’s expression was that of a caged animal.
    In seconds, Nick had inserted a two-inch IV catheter into a vein at Campbell’s wrist.
    “Extra wrap?” Junie asked.
    Nick nodded. As usual, she was ahead of the game.
    “Draw up one of Narcan and point three of flumazenil. Then hang a liter of saline and run it wide open,” he said.
    Junie unlocked the small crash cart and began drawing up the meds. At that instant, Campbell slid off the examining table and began turning frantically from one side to the other. Nick shelved his plan to