The What-Ifs

Let's call her Sarah, although that wasn't her name. I'd had the privilege of delivering her, and the fun of watching her grow into a precocious toddler, with an impish smile and a joyous laugh. Then I had the responsibility of explaining her autopsy report to her devastated parents.

She'd died from an infection that her young, previously healthy body just couldn't fight. It hadn't taken long; she'd started running a fever the night before, and her parents brought her to the clinic the next afternoon. The flight crew hadn't even gotten to our ER before she lost the battle.

Of course we all had...