The Great Escape

"Tim, I know I'm leaving tomorrow, and I have an idea about how to get through today. No more talk about how horrible I am, we both agree on that. No insults, no serious talk at all. We can talk about, I don't know, the girls maybe. You can tell me about your weekend with them in South Carolina, if you want to. You should know they told me barely anything about you, except that they saw you and you looked really good. And they were right about that. Or we can just not talk. Whatever you prefer."

"Uhh," Tim responded. "I don't feel like eating. Let's get started for Key Largo." He got up, checked out of the marina, and pointed The Great Escape out into the channel and south toward the Keys. Key Largo was only about 40 miles south, and Tim figured about five hours at a decent cruising speed. Boat traffic was pretty heavy, but no giant ships and the channel was pretty well marked. An easy run compared to some days further north.

At some point, Cora came up to the captain's chair and asked him if she could get him coffee or a soft drink or a snack. He jerked a bit when she spoke. He wasn't asleep, but he was certainly not paying attention the way he should.

"No, I'm okay," he told her, "we're making good time, maybe an hour from the marina at Key Largo."

She retreated to a nice seat in the stern, trying to enjoy the sun and the views, but not doing a good job of it. She was thinking about their house in Albany, and what would happen to it when they divorced. She liked the house, they had lived there since the girls were little, but the girls were just about grown now and rarely there. She didn't think she wanted to live there alone. Maybe.... The boat suddenly gave a lurch and went into a very tight turn to port. Alligator was her first, naive thought, and she stood up to see what was going on.

Cora screamed. Tim was lying on the floor, not moving, the boat was continuing its turn into a full circle. She ran forward, knew enough to move the throttle to neutral, and then turned down to Tim. In full professional nurse mode, she checked his airway and felt for a pulse. His heart was beating and he was breathing. She grabbed the radio microphone and stuck it into the top of her shirt. Then she started CPR, something she had done a thousand times in training, but never on a live person. But she knew how to do it, she thought, as she pressed and released her husband's chest. Taking a quick break, she pushed to talk on the radio.

"Help, help, I mean mayday, mayday, is anybody there? Please help." She let go of the push-to-talk button and resumed CPR. A voice garbled out of the speaker above the captain's chair.

"Lady, this is Harris at Sunset Marina, Key Largo. You're on the wrong channel. You need to go to Channel 16 for emergencies."

"No, no, please help me, I don't know how to change the channels. I think my husband has had a heart attack." And back to CPR.

"Okay, okay, hold on. Let me get the sheriff's office to pick up on this channel." Static for a minute or so and then a different voice.

"Monroe County Sheriff's dispatch. How can I help?" Cora had to stop her CPR again and then she spoke quickly.

"I'm Cora Peterson, with my husband Tim on a boat, uh, uh, a Ranger 31 named The Great Escape. He has had a heart attack, I think, and is unconscious. I'm doing CPR on him." And she went back to it.

"Yes ma'am, got it. What is your location?" Another pause in the CPR.

"I don't really know, on the way to Key Largo. From Coral Gables. Maybe an hour to go to get to Key Largo." Continued CPR. Another voice on the radio.

"Monroe County, this is Harris Ruxter at Sunset Marina on Key Largo. That boat reserved a space here for tonight. Mrs. Peterson, look above the wheel, there's a screen, and it should show your location, in latitude and longitude. Two sets of numbers. Can you read them to us?" Another break in the CPR. Cora found the coordinates and read them out loud.

"Monroe, Harris again, they're only about thirty minutes from here by a fast boat. I can use my outboard and head out to find them. If you can get an ambulance here in an hour, I think I can have him here by then."

"Monroe Couty here, good idea Mr. Harris. Break, break, Mrs. Peterson, are you okay to transfer your husband to a speedboat to get him ashore quickly?"

"Oh yes, yes, just please hurry Mr. Harris."

"Okay, okay, on my way. Uh, Harris is my first name. See you soon. Out." Cora continued CPR, with now aching arms, while she thought about where they were and the treatment Tim would need. She reached out to the Monroe dispatch person.

"Hello, hello, are you still there, Monroe Sherrif?"

"Yes ma'am, still monitoring. How is your husband?"

"Yes, thank you. Um, I'm a surgical nurse, from New York, and I am positive my husband has had a heart attack. And I'm afraid it is a serious one. Is it possible to get him airlifted to a Level One Trauma Center?" Cora went back to her CPR, wishing she had nitroglycerin or even an aspirin to give to Tim.

"Monroe County here. Yes ma'am, already working on that. We have Trauma Star here in the county, and I have requested airlift for your husband to Jackson in Miami." Cora knew of Jackson Memorial Hospital, and thought it was probably the best hospital in south Florida. She took another quick break from her CPR.

"Thank you, thank you, can you tell me the status?"

"Wilco, as soon as I hear." Cora kept pressing and releasing, listening for some news on the radio and for an outboard motor approaching. Nearing exhaustion, she finally heard both.

"Monroe County here. We have a Trauma Star flight on its way to Key Largo, inbound from Key West with one inter-hospital patient already onboard. That patient is stable. Ground ambulance will meet your husband at Sunset Marina, Key Largo, and transfer him to Key Largo municipal landing pad. Please advise of your ETA at Sunset Marina. Over."

"Yes ma'am, yes ma'am. I think Mr. Harris is approaching. Can we call you back?"

"Monroe County here, yes, please advise." Cora felt The Great Escape rocking as a smaller boat, with two gigantic engines, bumped alongside.

"Mrs. Peterson?"

"Yes, yes, thank god. Are you Mr. Harris?" she asked as a big man, with a dark, dark tan and a long, long Fu Manchu mustache, climbed onboard.

"Well, yes, I'm Harris Ruxter. Harris is my first name. How's your husband? Are you okay with moving him? I can leave you here, to motor on in, or you can come with me, and I can send someone out to get your boat."

"Thank you, thank you, I want to stay with my husband. And the sheriff person wants to know when we will get to your marina."

"I know, I've been monitoring your traffic. Let's get him moved and I'll call in with an exact ETA." In about a minute, Harris moved Tim, laid him flat in the bottom of the speedboat, and they took off, with Cora going back to her CPR. She did manage to find aspirin in the first aid kit on The Great Escape, and she put four tablets under Tim's tongue. She felt a rush of energy, knowing they were headed for EMT's and a flight to a real hospital. Tim was still breathing, she heard Harris, not Mr. Harris, she thought, talking to Monroe County and finally felt some optimism.

They arrived at Sunset Marina, the ambulance was waiting, the EMT's took over CPR, and Cora wearily climbed into the ambulance to ride to the helicopter landing place. About three minutes later, the ambulance pulled up next to a helicopter, the EMT's again moved Tim, and Cora started to climb aboard to ride with Tim on the flight.

"Ma'am, ma'am," someone on the helicopter was yelling at her. "Only room for the patient. We already have another patient onboard. Ask the ambulance guys for more info."

"Wait, wait. His name is Tim Peterson, and he had four aspirin about thirty minutes ago." The helicopter guy gave her a thumbs up and started sliding the door on the helicopter closed. She stepped back, an EMT grabbed her, and pulled her further back, and she watched as the helicopter lifted off with her husband.

Cora collapsed into tears. All this was her fault, she knew. If she had not cheated, Tim would not have left Albany, she would not have chased after him to this godforsaken, alligator infested, horrible place. He wouldn't have been so stressed from listening to her pontificate about reconciling. And if he were going to have a heart attack, it would have been in Albany, and she could have made sure he got the absolute best care at her hospital. Just, just fuck, she thought.

The EMT's thought she was upset because she couldn't go with her husband, and they tried to comfort her.

"Ma'am, let us drive you back to the marina, and Harris can help you get your boat recovered and docked. Then I'm sure he and Annie, that's his wife, can help you get up to Jackson. Okay?" Cora just nodded. They put her in the back of the ambulance and then drove to the marina. Harris was not there, but his wife Annie was. Not as big as Harris, but a lot of woman, long dress, long hair, pulled together in a ponytail, bare footed. Cora wondered if Annie and Harris had been hippies in an earlier life, and maybe still were.

"Honey, you come on in and let's get you a glass of iced tea. You look like you could use one, maybe with lots of sugar in it to pep you up a bit. You surely look bedraggled." Cora tried to smile at the welcome, but her attempt broke down into more tears. Annie wrapped her up in a big hug, and Cora cried harder. "Now, now, darlin,' hush your crying. Things are never as bad as they could be." Cora almost laughed through her tears.

"Oh yes they can be. In my case, they are even worse," and her tears continued.

Annie sat her down at the Ruxters' kitchen table. "Harris is out with his brother to get your boat and bring it back here," Annie said. She handed Cora a glass of iced tea and took a long look at her. Cora finally raised her head and looked back at Annie, and cried even louder.

"Honey, honey, you need to calm down. Jackson is a great hospital, and I'm sure your husband is getting the best care. When Harris gets back with your boat, he'll figure a way to get you up to Miami, and you'll be holding his hand when he wakes up from his surgery."

"No, no, you don't understand. My husband hates me, and I hate me. I've destroyed our marriage and I'm stuck down here with alligators."

"What? What do you mean, alligators? You don't mean Florida football, surely. If you do, you should just call 'em gators."

"What?" Both women looked at each other, slowly realizing there was some massive failure of communication going on.

Annie tried again, "Honey, the University of Florida, way up in Tallahassee, has a football team they call the Gators, short for alligators, and they do have their share of alligators in that part of Florida. But that ain't here. Alligators live in fresh water, and all the water you see around here is salt water. No fresh water, no alligators." That little sermon did help Cora stop her tears, and she thought she saw compassion in Annie's eyes.

"Annie, can I tell you my story? I'm not looking for sympathy, although any advice might be helpful."

"Honey, let me get both of us anther glass of iced tea, and I'll listen to your story with all my heart." Cora told her story, with no excuses or self-justifications: the man she had sex with thirty-some years ago, her affair with Mark Hanson, Tim finding out and leaving, leaving not only her, but leaving his law firm also, her finding him just - could it be possible? - only two days ago, his heart attack, and Harris coming to the rescue. She stopped for breath and some more iced tea, and added the bit about her jumping in the water naked and then having sex with Tim, some pretty great sex, she said.

Sitting there with Annie, drinking her iced tea, Cora did feel a little better. She didn't expect any real help or advice from Annie, but it felt good to tell her story. Thinking about it, she realized her story, hers and Tim's really, was actually a pretty boring tale, common to probably half of all married couples. Except, to her and Tim it wasn't boring, it was like a volcano, hidden for a while and then blowing up and destroying people's lives.

"Cora, that is some story. Now I get what you said about your husband hating you and you hating yourself. I have to say you surely screwed up. But hate's a big word, and yes, you surely have a big problem, but it's a problem for tomorrow. Today's problem is to get you to Jackson. I'll bet you Harris is thinking on that right now, and he'll have a good answer when he gets back."

"Can't I just call a taxi or an Uber, or rent a car?"

"Sorry, we got none of those here. I guess you could call somebody in Miami to drive down and then back up to the hospital with you, but that would be really expensive and take a long time. Let's wait for Harris." As if Harris were listening in, they heard his outboard motors before either said another word. Five minutes later, Harris was docked, and a police car was pulling into the marina parking lot.

"Ma'am," Harris explained to Cora, "this is my cousin Victory. He's a trooper with Florida State Patrol, and just happened to be patrolling along A1A. He will give you a ride back up to Miami-Dade, and ya'll will just happen to meet up with a county patrol, who will take you to Jackson. I'll take care of your boat until uh... uh until things settle down. Here's a card with our contact info so you can stay in touch. And I brought your purse from the boat. It's still on its way back in with Jeremy." Harris paused to take a breath.

"Jeremy works for us, honey," Annie explained.

Cora was open-mouthed at the plan, but she knew better than to say anything except, "Oh my god, thank you, thank you, I'll..." And her tears started again. Victory, the state trooper, took her by the arm, and put her in his vehicle, in the back seat. Better not to have a crying woman sitting in the front with him. Victory didn't run with his lights, but he did run pretty fast up A1A, a route he had driven a thousand times or so.

Cora finally stopped her sniffling and asked him the same question he had already heard a thousand times or so. "Uh, your name is Victory, did I hear that right?"

"Yes, ma'am, and you don't even need to ask your next question. My folks are serious, actually beyond serious, University of Florida football fans. My mom was in the hospital having me, but my dad had tickets to the Florida Georgia game, and he told her she had to wait to deliver until he got back from the game. Well, she didn't wait, and when he showed up he was yelling 'Victory, victory," 'cause Florida had beaten Georgia. So that's what they named me.

"Now, that's enough of my story. You just sit back and relax, and I'll hand you off to a Miami-Dade officer in just a few minutes." The transfer did go smoothly. Cora tried to thank Victory profusely, but he just waved her off. "Tell Harris he owes me one."

Cora climbed into the Miami-Dade patrol car, in the front seat this time. The polite young officer told her they were headed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, ETA in about 10 minutes. And said nothing else. Cora spent the few minutes trying, without any success, to calculate what Tim's status would be: in surgery? Post-op? Something else? She tamped down her fears, and ran into the hospital when they arrived, barely thanking the police officer.

"Tim Peterson, Timothy Peterson? Date of birth? Do you have id?" The information person at Jackson Memorial was the usual officious, molasses-slow clerical person, typing on her keyboard with only two fingers. Cora bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming. Slowly, slowly, she relayed the necessary info to the clerk, and even more slowly the clerk entered it into the system. And finally looked up at Cora.

"Ma'am, we have no one here by that name. You said he arrived by emergency helicopter. Is it possible we don't have his name?"

"Yes, I guess it is. He had a heart attack, and I'm sure, well, pretty sure he would have gone right into surgery, unless... unless, oh sweet Jesus, unless...."

"Ma'am, ma'am," the clerk yelled out. Cora jerked herself back to attention. "Let me get a supervisor." Another woman, older, more professionally dressed, Cora noted, walked briskly to the information desk.

"How may I help?" Cora looked at her id tag.

"Ms. Jefferson, my husband was flown here earlier today, by a life flight from Key Largo, and now I can't find him." She stopped, she just couldn't say any words about the alternative.

"Okay, let's go to my office and we'll check into it." Pecking at her own computer, Ms. Jefferson asked Cora, "Life flight, you say? Do you mean Trauma Star? That's the...."

"Yes, that's it. Trauma Star, a big helicopter with another patient already on board."

"Mmmm," Ms. Jefferson muttered as she pecked away. "Tim Peterson, no date of birth, right? I mean, no date entered."

"Yes, yes, is he uhh, is he...?

"He's at our other hospital, uh, Mrs. Peterson, is it?" Cora nodded. "When the Trauma Star flights are enroute, they call ahead to let us decide which hospital is more ready at that particular time for that particular kind of emergency. Then our emergency coordination office directs them to the right hospital. Your husband is at Jackson South, in the cardiac wing."

"Oh, oh, he's, he's...."

"Let me call over there and get a status." She did, and reported to Cora, "He is actually in surgery right now, and I won't know more until they finish."

"Thank god, thank god. How can I get there? How far away is it?"

"About fifteen miles from here, and we have a shuttle every thirty minutes. That is probably your quickest way down there. Tell you what, let's go to the shuttle stop and I'll make sure the driver knows to hurry you on down to J South. Okay?"

"Yes ma'am, yes ma'am, thank you." Ultimately, it took Cora an hour to get to the cardiac surgery center at Jackson South, where she found that Tim was already in post-op. Just that information let her take some calming breaths: he was alive, her treachery hadn't killed him, he had survived surgery. It took some effort to break through the surgery unit's protective bureaucracy, but Cora managed, and caught up to Tim just before he was moved to the recovery unit. She had identified herself as a surgical care nurse, using enough buzz words and professional terms that the duty nurse accepted her as a colleague, albeit from a foreign country, also known as New York, the nurse laughed.

"Mrs. Peterson, your husband may be the luckiest man alive. You know what the widow maker is, right?" Cora nodded: the LAD, the left anterior descending artery, the main artery in the heart. Well, your husband's LAD was just about 100% blocked. I have to tell you; he should have been dead. But somebody did some serious CPR on that man. I mean, he has more bruises from the CPR than he does from the surgery. Once the docs figured out his problem, they put in a big, long stent, took about twenty minutes, and he should be good as new in a few days. Well, maybe a few weeks, but, really, he is a very lucky man."

Cora was stunned. She looked at Tim, lying in the hospital bed, with pads and wires attached to his chest, an IV drip, and probably a catheter, although she couldn't see that. She tried to see him in a detached, professional way, but that just wasn't working for her. She saw her husband, her smart, strong, athletic husband, who had been so near death, and was now looking so frail and helpless. She wouldn't let herself give in to her tears. She felt like all she had been doing was crying. She watched as he stirred a bit and opened his eyes. He looked around, in the groggy way of every post-op patient. He saw her.

"Cora, is that you? I'm in the hospital, I think." Cora smiled.