Speaker 1: Calorogu Shark Media, Hello, and welcome to Ghost Scary Stories.
This episode is titled Nightwatch Part one, Perfect Patience.
Speaker 2: There's an art to listening to people die. That's not
what they called it in my training. Of course, they
use terms like patient monitoring technician and early warning detection.
But that's what I do. Really. I sit in a
dark room for twelve hours each night, listening to thirty
two different people struggle to stay alive. Sometimes they win,
sometimes they don't. Sometimes I'm not sure which would be worse.
My name is Marcus Chen. Six months ago, my sister
Emily died at Saint Michael's Memorial Hospital. The monitors said
she was fine until she wasn't. Now I work here
watching those same monitors, trying to understand what we missed.
The hospital administration called it an unfortunate system's failure. Dr Reeves,
her attending physician called it an unavoidable outcome. I call
it something else. Tonight's just another shift, That's what I
tell myself as I badge through three security doors to
reach the monitoring room. Just another night of vital signs
and video feeds of logging numbers that say everything's fine.
The room is kept intentionally dark, better to see the screens,
they say. But spend enough nights here and you start
to wonder if it's really about not seeing what's in
the shadows between the monitors. Thirty two different windows into
thirty two different rooms, each one showing heart rates, blood pressure,
oxygen levels, thirty two different audio feeds carrying breath sounds,
monitor beeps, and sometimes other things. Jessica, our charge nurse,
is waiting when I arrive. Her face looks wrong in
the blue glow of the screens. Too sharp, too tired,
Watch five hundred and twelve tonight, she says, tapping a
monitor showing perfectly stable vital signs postop from Dr Reeves
total knee. Patient's been difficult, difficult, How keeps insisting something's
wrong despite perfect readings. Claims the pain is wrong, different
than explained. You know, the type reads too much. Web
MD wants attention, She checks her phone. Just keep an
eye on her. I nod. But something in Jessica's tone
catches my attention, a hesitation, like she's trying to convince herself.
The first few hours follow the usual ris them I
document vital signs, watch trends, auntswer call lights, but I
keep coming back to five hundred and twelve Sarah Morrison,
forty two, same age as my sister. Her numbers are
perfect textbook. That's what bothers me, because human bodies aren't textbook.
They're messy, chaotic things. They spike and dip and fluctuate.
My sister's monitors showed perfect readings, too, right until the end.
Around midnight, the call light for five hundred and twelve
blinks on through the audio feed. I hear a voice,
tight with something worse than pain. Please, something's wrong. I
can feel it. It's not right. Why won't anyone listen?
I radio Jessica. Watch her enter the room. On the
video feed, the audio cuts out standard privacy protocol, but
I can see missus Morrison's face, see the way she
clutches her knee, see her mouth forming the same words
over and over. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Jessica leaves. The audio returns,
and underneath Missus Morrison's ragged breathing, I hear something else,
a whisper of movement that doesn't match her position on
the bed. I check the video. She's completely still. The
sound comes again, like cloth sliding against cloth, but wrong.
I adjust the audio levels, trying to isolate it. The
monitor shows perfect vitals, perfect, just like my sister's one
am two am. The call light blinks on every twenty minutes,
each time, the same pleas for help each time, the
same perfect numbers each time. That whisper of wrong movement
under the regular hospital sounds. At two forty seven am.
I notice the first change. It's subtle. Her heart rate
drops a single beat, then another. The pattern is so
gradual it would be easy to miss. But I've seen
this before, watched this before, listened before. The audio feed
catches a new sound, a wet, rattling breath that doesn't
match her respiratory rate on the monitor. I compare her
data to previous patients. The pattern emerges too perfect, too stable,
too normal, just like the others, Just like my sister.
I radio Jessica five hundred and twelve needs help now.
Her numbers are lying. My voice sounds strange in the
dark room, like they lied about Emily. Silence. Jessica knows
about my sister. Everyone does, Marcus check the patient please.
Maybe she hears something in my voice, maybe she remembers
Emily too. She goes through the video feed I watch
her enter five hundred and twelve, Watch her approach the bed,
watch her face change as she realizes what the monitors
have been hiding. Watch her hit the code button. What
happens next isn't in any training manual. The code team
rushes in perfect numbers, finally shatter, showing the crisis that's
been building for hours and under the chaos of urgent
voices and emergency medications. I hear that whisper again, not
cloth against cloth, software against software. Later, after missus Morrison
is stabilized and transferred to ICU, I pull up the
monitoring logs. The pattern is clearer now, subtle digital corrections
maintaining normal readings while a patient slowly deteriorates, just like
with Emily, just like with others. Excellent catch. I turn
to find Doctor Reeves in the doorway, tablet in hand.
He's reviewing the overnight data, but something about his posture
seems careful control. The monitors should have shown significant changes,
he says, voice neutral. We'll need to check the equipment calibration.
These systems are quite sophisticated. There's something in the way,
he says sophisticated, that makes me look closer His expression
is professionally concerned, but his eyes are evaluating, measuring, just
like with Emily. The words slip out before I can
stop them. Something flickers behind his eyes, too quick to
read that was an unfortunate case, different circumstances entirely. He
makes a note on his tablet. Still, your attention to
subtle variations is noteworthy. We don't often see that level
of pattern recognition. The way he says it sounds almost
like approval. But of what get some rest, Marcus, he adds,
turning to leave. I'm sure tomorrow night will be equally instructive.
I watch him go, remembering how he'd said almost the
same things after Emily died. Professional appropriate, perfect. I save
missus Morrison's data to my private drive before logging off.
The morning shift tech is already here, yawning as she
settles in. She'll watch for obvious crises, the clear patterns,
the evident alarms. But I'll be back tonight watching for
the patterns that hide in plain sight, the ones that
look too perfect to be true, because they probably aren't.
And I'm starting to wonder if Dr Reeves knows exactly.
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