Chapter 5 - The Medical Impossible|
Before Luca could ask another question, the suite door unlocked.
Dr. Aris—a sharp-eyed, gray-haired neurologist who had managed Sophia’s care for three years—sprinted into the living room carrying two silver medical cases, flanked by Rocco.
"Luca!" Dr. Aris panted, breathless. "Rocco told me on the radio... is it true? Did Sophia stand?"
Luca didn't take his eyes off Hannah. "She didn't just stand, Aris. She ran thirty feet across marble floorboards."
Dr. Aris dropped his medical cases onto the coffee table, looking completely bewildered. "That's... that's scientifically impossible. Her L4 and L5 nerve pathways were severed by the crushed door frame. The MRI scans showed total neural atrophy—"
"Go check her," Luca ordered.
Dr. Aris rushed over to the sofa where Sophia sat watching them. He pulled out a small reflex hammer, testing her knees, then placed portable nerve sensor pads along her lower back and legs.
A series of rapid, clear electronic chimes echoed from his portable monitor.
Beep... beep... beep... beep!
Dr. Aris stared at the screen, his mouth opening in absolute shock. "The nerve pathways aren't severed. They're intact. The signal transmission is eighty percent restored."
Luca froze. "What did you say?"
"Her spine wasn't permanently broken," Dr. Aris stammered, pointing a shaking finger at the green wave lines glowing on his monitor. "The nerve cluster was merely compressed by a bone fragment. Someone must have shifted the pressure off her lower spine before the scar tissue formed!"
Luca turned his head slowly, looking at Hannah standing near the foyer.
"Forty minutes," Luca whispered raspy. "You were under the water with her for forty minutes."
"The crushed door was pinning her lower back against the seat frame," Hannah confessed quietly, looking down at her hands. "The water was rising fast. I couldn't pull her out... so I crawled under the metal and used an iron tire iron from my trunk to pry the steel frame off her back until the divers came."
Dr. Aris gasped softly. "You pried the frame off? If you had moved her half an inch in the wrong direction, she would have bled to death in seconds!"
"I didn't move her," Hannah said softly, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I just lifted the weight off her spine so she could breathe."
Luca closed his eyes, a deep, agonizing shudder running through his broad frame.
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For three years, he had believed his daughter’s paralysis was a tragic, irreversible fate. For three years, he had spent millions on world-class surgeons who told him there was no hope.
And all the while, a twenty-six-year-old diner waitress had done what no surgeon in the world could do—with an iron tire iron in three feet of freezing river water.
