Chapter 33
FOURTH
Sarah Herrington placed fourth. She knew that would be her fate fifteen meters out. Despite Sarah’s final desperate lunge, Kelley Kirkland was out of reach.
The three 1500-meter qualifiers danced around the track at Knoxville, skipping and whooping. Sarah walked into the tunnel beneath the stadium, up the ramp, and out the gates. She kept walking until a different pain stopped her.
“Are you awake?” whispered the nurse.
Sarah was numb from her chin, down. She heard the beeping noises of hospital equipment, rolled her eyes upward to see tubes descending from racks to her torso, but she could neither raise her head nor feel anything below her face.
“Did I pass out?” she asked the ICU nurse, a muscular dark woman with plump red lips.
“Sweetheart, you were struck by a car. Both your legs are broken but they’ve been set. You are sedated so you won’t feel any pain. You won’t be able to move for a few more days.”
“I have to get out and train,” Sarah said, her glazed eyes opened wide. There was earnest passion in her tone. “The Olympic Trials are very soon. I have to go for a run.”
“I’m her husband,” Bill lied to the nurse at the station. “Who’s the physician in charge?”
“She’s asleep now. Her attending is Dr. Zirbel. You can speak to him tomorrow morning.”
“Please let me see her. It’s been two days, for God’s sake. Just let me look in on her. Please.”
“She’s in Room 214 – down this hall, on the left. You really should come back tomorrow.”
The nurse turned and busied herself with charts on the opposite side of the station.
Bill walked stealthily toward Sarah’s room, glancing over his shoulder to be certain he had tacit permission to stay. He pushed the barely-open door and slipped into the clean, white chamber.
Sarah lay there peacefully, her room awash with flowers and balloons. The monitors were blinking out their readings – HR 64, BP 114/73, O2 97%. The electrocardiogram squiggled out a normal sinus rhythm. A bag of oatmeal-colored liquid was being pumped, at the rate of 55 ml per hour, into her stomach. A unit of O-positive blood drained into her right arm. Urine dripped from a catheter into a transparent bag hung at the foot of her bed.
Sarah’s legs were cocooned in casts from her hips to her shins; her body was propped in an open V position. The sedatives made her oblivious to her gaping mouth and the drool that seeped from both corners of it.
Bill pulled a tissue from the bedside stand and gently wiped the saliva off her chin and lips. “I love you, Sarah. Everything’s going to work out all right,” he whispered.
He read a few of the cards and notes from Sarah’s friends and fellow athletes–
” . . . wishing you a speedy recovery.”
” . . . truly an Olympic effort.”
” . . . be able to run again soon.”
” . . . heart of a champion.”
” . . . I’m so, so sorry.”
Athletics Gazette July 27
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced today that Kelley Kirkland, the third place finisher in the Olympic Trials 1500-meters, tested positive for a banned substance. “Ephedrine was found in both the A and B urine samples,” said a spokesman for the group.
The U.S. Olympic Committee, confirming the report, announced that Kirkland has been removed from the Olympic Team and her bronze medal and prize money returned.
Sarah Herrington, fourth in the 1500-meter final would normally assume the vacancy on the U.S. team. Herrington, however, suffered serious injuries minutes after the race in a pedestrian/car accident. Fifth-place finisher Bonita Benson cannot fill the vacancy. Her best time, run at the Trials, is a non-qualifying 4:04.60.