“Whats the matter, Billy?” one of the female patients asked.

He looked at her. “I’m kinda groggy. Guess I took too many pills,” he said. “I think I’ll go to sleep early.”

A few minutes later Danny woke to see several people rushing into his room, pulling him out of bed.

“What’d I do?” he begged.

Someone held up a pill bottle, and he saw some had spilled on the floor.

“I didn’t take any,” Danny said.

“You’ve got to go to the hospital,” he heard, and someone yelled for a wheeled cot to take Milligan away. Danny left and David came …

When Mike Rupe approached him, Ragen, thinking he was going to hurt David, took the spot. As Rupe tried to help him to his feet, Ragen grappled with him, and they fell back onto the bed.

“I vill break your neck!” Ragen roared.

“No you won’t either,” Rupe said.

They had each other by the arms and rolled over onto the floor.

“Let go! I break your bones!”

“In that case, I sure as hell ain’t lettin’ go.”

“I hurt you if you don’t release me.”

“I ain’t lettin’ go as long as you’re tellin’ me that shit, ” Rupe said.

They wrestled back and forth, neither able to subdue the other. Finally, Rupe said, “I’ll let go of you if you let go of me and promise not to break my bones.”

Seeing it was a stalemate, Ragen agreed: “I vill let go if you let go and you move back avay.”

“We both let go at the same time,” Rupe said, “and everything’s cool.”

They looked into each other’s eyes; then each released the other and moved away.

Dr. Caul, who had appeared in the doorway, gave instructions for the other attendants to move the wheeled cot in.

“I do not need that,” Ragen said. “No one took overdose.” “You’re going to the hospital to be checked out,” Dr. Caul said. “We have no way of knowing how much of his leave medication Billy saved up. Someone said something about taking too much medication. We’ve got to be sure.”

Caul spoke to Ragen until he finally slipped away. Then Danny’s knees buckled, and as his eyes rolled back, Rupe caught him and helped him onto the stretcher.

They went out to the waiting ambulance. Rupe sat inside with Milligan as they drove to the O’Bleness Memorial Hospital.

Rupe felt that the emergency room doctor didn’t much like the idea of having Billy Milligan there to treat. He tried to explain to the doctor, as well as he could, that Milligan had to be handled carefully: “If he starts to talk in that Slavic accent, the best thing is to back away from him and let a female nurse deal with him.”

The doctor ignored him and watched as Danny’s eyes rolled back. Rupe could see he was switching from David to Danny. “He’s faking,” the doctor said.

“He’s just switching and—”

“Listen, Milligan, I’m going to pump your stomach. I’m going to put some tubes down your nose and pump your stomach.”