Dec 29, 20172 min read

Garden Grove: 6 Vandals Strike Again – Dave by LV Gaudet

Garden Grove Cover - McNally - front cover

At the hospital, Dave McCormack and a few of the other poisoned workers are being discharged. Being the slow process that it is, the discharges ran over the span of a number of hours.

As the men left one by one, they stopped in to wave a goodbye and crack the usual jokes about hospital food to the other men sitting in their rooms dressed to go home with their hospital issue plastic bags holding their personal effects of cards, well wishes, and stuff that was supposed to entertain them during their temporary hospital incarceration. They made their rounds of the men who would still be in the hospital for a few more days or weeks, the ones who were allowed visitors anyway.

Dave was one of the earlier releases. He made his rounds with his worried wife at his side fussing over him and looking like she was going to cry over every man they visited who couldn’t go home just yet.

Dave almost cried himself while he visited some of the men he’d worked with, spending long hours labouring and joking, the casual after work Friday beers shared, and now looking like death hovered within reach.

Two men who were supposed to go home in a few days had worsened and were moved into intensive care. It isn’t looking good for either of them.

One of the men originally in intensive care had been moved to a regular hospital bed after improving considerably.

Another was taken off life support, his quality of life ruined and showing little brain activity. But his body is still too stubborn to pass away. His heart kept ticking, his lungs feebly collapsing and expanding. The doctors are sure he will not survive.

Dave walked out of the hospital into the bright cool afternoon with an exhilarating feeling of release mixed with a heavy heart. He feels like he has just been released from a prison, although he’d never actually had the prison experience to compare his feelings to.

He also walked with the weight of an entire injured crew on his shoulders.

He isn’t the foreman. It is the foreman’s job to take responsibility for the safety of the men on the crew. But he feels the guilt just the same. He is the most senior man on the crew after the foreman. He feels just as responsible for the men’s safety, especially the green ones.