Bright red numerals flashed 62 percent oxygen saturation on the bedside monitor. A warning light flickered like a strobe. The alarm bell blared nonstop. Even though Kilburn could also see the jerky heartbeat traced on the screen, he reached a gloved hand to the side of the patient’s neck to convince himself there was still a faint pulse. Leaning closer, he heard a loud hiss with each pump of the bag and realized most of the oxygen was leaking around the face seal without reaching Mallek’s desperately deprived lungs.

“Blood pressure is holding in the eighties,” the nurse said. “But he needs to be intubated—stat!” She glanced at Kilburn, her eyes afire. “Can you?”

He hadn’t attempted the technically demanding maneuver in three years. But he knew that Mallek couldn’t wait an extra minute for the cardiac arrest team outside the door to struggle into their protective gear. Without a word, Kilburn pounced on the tray behind him and grabbed the scythe-shaped laryngoscope in one hand and the clear snorkel-like endotracheal tube in the other. The sweat began to roll into his eyes. Realizing how dangerous it might be to bring his already contaminated glove near his face, he resisted the temptation to dab at his forehead. Instead, he blinked the sweat away.

Kilburn looked over to the nurse and nodded. She returned the gesture and then yanked the bag-mask off Mallek’s face. Thick green liquid pooled in Mallek’s open mouth and dripped out over the comers of his lips. Kilburn heard a faint gurgling noise and saw small bubbles form and pop in the mouth’s secretions. The decayed smell of pus wafted up to his nose.

Kilburn hunched forward until he hovered inches from Mallek’s head. A bead of his own sweat trickled down from the inside of his visor and fell on the patient’s face. He thrust Mallek’s neck even further back with his free hand, and then slid the blade of the laryngoscope over the tongue. He pulled up and forward with the device’s handle, lifting Mallek’s jaw and opening the mouth wider. A gush of green flooded over the sides of his mouth and spattered Kilburn’s face-mask. Instinctively jerking back, he prayed that he had secured his mask well enough.

Kilburn glanced at the nurse. “Suction!”

She slapped the foot-long curved suction catheter into the hand in which he already held the endotracheal tube. He stuck the catheter deep in Mallek’s throat, but the small vacuum couldn’t keep up to the lungs’ massive production. The monitor’s alarm shrieked in his ears, warning him the patient was dangerously underoxygenated. He already knew. Mallek’s lips had turned dusky blue.