...you go to the morgue to retrieve an empty gurney on which to transport your recently deceased patient, and find two other staff members already there, standing beside a gurney covered with a white sheet. "They're all full," they say to you. "What do you mean, they're all full?" you inquire. "We're waiting for the funeral director to pick this guy up," they gesture to the gurney next to them, "so that we can take this gurney upstairs for another one".
The room smells like death. It's cold, so it's not as bad as it could be, but it's there... that sort of sweet off-odor of decay. You really, really don't want to have to come back down here an extra time tonight. Aside from the smell, your trip to here from the ER involved a ride on the terrifying industrial elevator that reminds you of an unnerving Sigourney Weaver scene in "Aliens". .
You open each of the stainless steel lockers... why are there only 8 of them in a hospital this size? Each of them holds a gurney, upon which rests body draped by a white sheet. One of them is very small... a child. Your find that your colleagues are correct... not an empty gurney to be found. They tell you that this is the fourth death on their unit today. "That sucks," is all you can think of to say.
And you return to the ER without a gurney. You and your dead patient will have to wait.
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