By the next morning Karen was awake. She had significant pain in her chest and upper arm but was not running a fever and her injured lung was sounding much better. The vascular surgeon came in to check her progress. He checked the her fingers and was able to detect good circulation. She asked, “Why don’t I feel anything when you touch my fingers? It’s like they are not there.”

Dr. Teil responded, “Four bullets went through your arm. We did a lot of work to fix the damage. It will take time for the tissues to recover.”

“I tried to move my fingers. I can’t.”

“Give it a few days. Your arm probably wouldn’t have been hurt more if it had been run over by a truck. It was hit by four bullets, from the size of the two we took out Dr. Filer thinks they were using AK-47’s. That is a big bullet with a lot of energy. It does lot of damage.  Your arm was hit four times.”

“How long till I can get back to work?”

“Well. That is more the area of the other doctors. They will be in later. I can tell you this much. You have a big hole they cut in your chest that has to heal. Your right lung was hit by two bullets and had to be repaired. On the good side there, the chart says your lung sounds good. We don’t want you to get an infection or pneumonia. I’ll be watching the circulation in your hand. That appears good which is a really good sign. You had no circulation in your hand and lower arm when you came in. The veins and arteries to your forearm and hand were destroyed at your elbow and the artery in your armpit area was cut, the paramedics put pressure on it till you got here. We were able to restore that circulation.”

“I was reaching up to adjust the visor when it happened.”

“We couldn’t figure out how the bullets could have taken the paths they did. You should tell the police that.  They will be in to talk to you.  It may help them in their investigation.”

“I think they talked to me at the, accident.”

“They probably did. But I am sure they will want to have you go back and see if you missed anything. I’ll be back to see you tomorrow and the day after then my partner will be covering for a couple days.”