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Carter thinks that he has to be the unluckiest man alive. Everything that can go wrong, will ho wrong. Especially, if your name was John Truman Carter III. Sometimes he believes that Murphy had it out for him.
Benton had left him for a surgery, so he was down in the ER doing stitches. He was getting rather good at it, he was on a roll now. Carter had stitched up about half a dozen lacerations when a particularly inebriated patient sat down in front of him. He winces when he gets a whiff of the man’s stale breath.
"Sir, just wait one moment I need to get your chart." Carter smiles kindly, stepping out of the room. "I will only be a moment." He walks out and goes to find Kerry Weaver.
"Dr Weaver, I have a patient who needs stitches but he's definitely under the influence. What do I do?" He asks the older doctor.
"John, we are slammed. As long as he’s not aggressive and you make sure he has informed consent and understands it, you are fine to stitch him up and send him on his way." She says, hurrying away when she's called to help on another case.
Carter nods walking back with the patient's chart now in hand. "Okay Mr," John checks the chart, "Jameson. May I see your injury, please?"
Jameson grunts and rolls up his sleeve exposing a 5 inch long cut along his forearm. It's oozing a steady amount of blood but nothing too serious.
"May I take a closer look and palpate around the wound?" Carter asks, gloves already on his hands in anticipation. The man nods and holds his arm out towards the doctor.
John palpates along the wound. He notes that there are no foreign bodies in the laceration and no structural damage. "That all seems fine." Carter tells him with a smile. He puts his gloves in the bin, taking a moment to read Mr Jameson's chart. "It says here that you've had local anaesthetic before and that you didn't have any negative side effects, is that correct?" He receives a slow nod in response.
"Okay, I'm going to clean around your injury with an alcohol wipe. I am then going to inject you with the anaesthetic and give that a moment to take effect. I will then give you around 25 stitches and walk you through the after care steps." Carter explains. "Do you understand and do I have your permission to continue?"
"Yeah, just get it over with." Jameson speaks for the first time, his voice low and gruff.
Carter puts on another pair of gloves and preps his instruments. "This is going to sting a little." He warns dabbing the wipe on the cut. The next thing he knows he's lying flat on his back with a very angry agitated Mr Jameson on top of him.
"That wasn't a little bit. You lying to me boy?" He spits in Carter's face. John can't reply he's too stunned by how fast he had switched from being subdued and withdrawn to aggressive. He gapes for a second only answering when the patient pulls him up and slams him back down against the floor.
"No sir, I did not mean to lie to you." He raises his hands placatingly. Carter supposes he moved too fast and spooked him because he's then rolled onto his stomach and his arms are pinned tightly behind his back. He feels a hand grasp his hair and his head is roughly tugged off the floor.
"You think I'm dumb, huh?" Jameson sneers in his ear. "You think that because you have a white fancy coat that you're better than me?"
'No sir. I promise I do not think that." Carter assures the man who now has one knee planted on his back. "This is all just a misunderstanding. If you let me up I can finish sewing you up and you can be on your way." Carter pleads. It falls on deaf ears because his head is pushed back into the floor.
Carter panics and kicks out his legs, the only parts of him not pinned down on the ground. He knocks a table and hears an instrument tray clatter loudly to the floor. The door bursts open and someone calls for security.
The patient is lifted off of him and John can finally breathe. He rolls over onto his back panting to see Malik restraining Mr Jameson who now has a wild look in his eyes. He's yelling all kinds of profanities when security finally arrives and takes him off Malik's hands.
"You alright, Carter?" The nurse asks, kneeling down beside him and beginning to check for injuries.
"I don't think I'm seriously hurt, just a bit sore." He winces rubbing his back. "I don't know what happened. He was fine and then he wasn't."
"Probably has a little more than alcohol in his system." Malik remarks, helping Carter off the floor and on to the stool he had been knocked off of. "Take a second to breathe and then go to the break room and let a doctor look you over." Malik tells him.
Carter wants to protest but he knows it's hospital policy and that it would be useless to do so. At least he will most likely get the rest of the day off. That’s a silver lining, he supposes.