"The things I do in the name of instructional design," said Will as he donned the green gown and shoe booties required of anyone entering the sterile area. Gert Greenberg, the supervising operating room nurse handed him the shower cap-like head gear and mask. "Here these will accessorize very nicely," she smiled. "You'll give George Clooney a run for his money."

"I'll take the money," returned Will.

"Thee and me, babe" said Gert maternally. "Salaries are a touchy issue around here what with the freeze and all. Yeah, kind of odd when you realize that some actor impersonating a doctor or nurse can make more in one episode of a TV show than any of us makes in a year--or even several years." Gert sighed. "Enough whining. Changing the subject, that storm still going on out there? We lose all sense of time and weather in here."

Will could see why. The recovery room was an area adjoining the operating theaters, where patients were brought following surgery to be stabilized before they could return to their rooms. Subdued lighting, curtains cordoning off each patient, and the life-giving whirs, swoosh-swoosh, and beeps of the ventilators, automated IV regulators, and heart monitors muffling all human sounds leant an impression of cocoon-like envelopment. Will found himself speaking softly. "It's a real thunder boomer. Rain still coming down in buckets."

Gert showed Will around the recovery room and then pointed out the robotic blood analyzer (RBA) located in a small closet-like area. One of the nurses was using the machine, carefully fitting the test tube containing the blood sample into the robot arm. "It's pretty simple;" commented Gert, "it's just a matter of making sure it gets set properly. The test tubes are now marked to show just where the clamp on the arm snaps around them. It was a little dicey until we figured out that marking the tubes really helped. The first few times we used it, several got broken, Someone even put the tube in upside down." Gert was laughing. "What a mess! Now it works like a charm."

The nurse touched the computer screen in several places, and typed some patient information into the computer. The RBA hummed to life, the arm withdrawing the tube inside of the machine. A flashing green light indicated that the blood was being analyzed. Minutes later the results appeared on the screen. Gert walked over and looked at the screen. "The lab tech in the central lab has already seen these results and has indicated that the test is okay," she explained to Will. Then turning to the nurse, she said calmly, "Cleve, page Anderson. He's the resident on duty. He needs to see this." She hit a button on the computer and the printer began producing a hard copy. "Stay here, will you, Will?" She hurried down to one of the cloaked cubicles.

The nurse spoke into the phone, "Stat page for Dr. Anderson to Recovery," and then, ripping the test results out of the printer, followed Gert to the patient's bedside.

Even though Gert had been very matter of fact, Will felt the tension in the room notched up a level. This was confirmed as two gowned figures burst through the swinging doors at one end of the room and rushed down to the cubicle. "This better be important, Gert" loudly grumbled one of the doctors. "I told you not to wake me for any of Norman's patients. You nurses haven't got any judgment."

Will's hands felt suddenly cold and his stomach turned over when he heard one of the beeping monitors go into to a prolonged cry. Instantly, the room was filled with activity and he heard someone shout "Get the crash cart!" The nurse named Cleve raced across the floor and, grabbing the handle of a large red cart, he propelled it expertly back into the cubicle.

As Will listened, he heard the noises of the life-saving maneuvers by the code team while they worked on the patient. He was torn. Part of him wanted to take off and get as far away from here as possible while another part was fascinated, nailing him to the spot. Just standing there was driving him nuts. He felt helpless. He'd seen it a hundred times on television but this was altogether different. "I can't believe this is real!" Will kept saying to himself over and over. The possibility of death was real and in the same room with him. He had to tell himself to breathe.

The heart monitor had regained a rhythmic beep. Just then Gert came running towards where Will still stood by the RBA. She was carrying two tubes of dark blood. As she approached the machine the lights in the room suddenly flickered and then everything was plunged into darkness and silence. "Damn!" said Gert. "Must be that thunder storm. Power's gone out." Will could hear the doctor in the cubicle cursing even louder.

It had to have been less than twenty seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime to Will before the lights came back on and the machinery all surged back into operation. He saw a red light flashing on the RBA. Gert turned to Will, "We're on the generator now," she explained, her voice a balm.

She snatched up some blank labels from the desk drawer and went to the computer screen where she called up a record. "I need your help, Will, hon," she said as she wrote a bunch of numbers on the labels and then wrapped the labels around the tubes of blood. "Do you know where the Clinical Lab is?"

Will nodded numbly, "I think so."

"The power outage has knocked out the calibrations on the blood analyzer, so we need to get this blood to the lab as fast as possible," said Gert. "I normally would send someone else but with this emergency and no power, frankly you're it. The hospital messenger service which supplies runners only works the Day shift." She was rummaging around in a drawer. "Now, Where are those old lab request forms? Ah, here they are."

"Gert, get down here!' shouted Dr. Anderson. His voice, sounding surprisingly young, was shaking. "I need you."

"Here," she thrust the tubes of blood into Will's hands together with the form. "Check off 'arterial blood gasses' on the form and then run this down to the lab as fast as you can. Tell them to phone us back the results, stat." And with that she was gone.

For a few seconds Will was dumbstruck. Then as the adrenaline pumped through his body, he sprang into action. Looking at the form in his hand, he saw a series of indecipherable abbreviations and acronyms. Finally he came to the notation ABG. Arterial blood gasses. "What the heck," he thought to himself, "must be it. Nothing else comes close." He circled it and to make absolutely certain, wrote the words on the form. Then he took off through the exit doors, headed through the maze of corridors in what he hoped was the right direction for the clinical lab.