I had worked as an emergency physician at Saint Raphael Medical Center in Milwaukee for almost eight years, long enough to believe I understood the full spectrum of human crisis. I had pronounced deaths that still haunted my dreams, delivered babies under flickering lights during power outages, stitched wounds inflicted by desperation, addiction, and violence, and learned how to keep my voice steady even when my hands wanted to shake. Over time, you build emotional calluses just to survive. You learn which sounds mean trouble and which silences are worse.

You tell yourself you are prepared for anything because believing otherwise would make it impossible to walk back through the sliding doors each day. That Thursday night in early November felt aggressively ordinary, the kind of shift that lulled you into thinking you might leave on time. Cold rain streaked the windows, the waiting room hummed with low complaints and the beeping of monitors, and I was mentally transitioning from physician to private citizen, already planning dinner and sleep. When the automatic ER doors exploded open with a metallic shriek, it felt like the hospital itself had inhaled sharply.