The Angel of Death in ICU

My dad was in the ICU, kept alive by a ventilator.

Through the viewing window, I watched Nurse Tiffany pull out my dad’s breathing tube, lift her phone, and flash a triumphant grin at his face.

I burst in like a maniac, but she calmly reinserted the tube, smiling sweetly yet maliciously at me. “He’s dying anyway. Why not make a contribution?”

I called the police and went to President Thompson, but the entire hospital hailed her as a hero dedicated to saving lives. I, they said, was an ungrateful lunatic.

Until I crashed her awards ceremony, slamming a piece of evidence onto the projector screen.

“Beep—beep—beep—”

In the ICU, the cold beeping of the machines echoed like a grim prophecy, each sound hammering at my chest.

My dad lay on the hospital bed, tubes running in and out of him. The only sign he was still alive was the faint, fluctuating line on the monitor.

I only got half an hour of visiting time each day.

Through the thick glass, I stared at my dad’s face, greedy for every moment, praying for a miracle.

Today, a young nurse named Tiffany was assigned to my dad’s room.

She had a sweet look with two dimples, seemingly harmless.

But just as I was about to leave, something out of the corner of my eye made my blood run cold.

Tiffany approached my dad’s bed and grabbed the ventilator tube near his mouth.

I thought she was performing routine care, and my heart tightened.

But the next second, she pulled the tube out without hesitation.

The heart rate and oxygen levels on the monitor plummeted instantly, triggering a piercing alarm.

And she—she pulled out her phone, aimed it at my dad’s bluish-purple face and the plummeting numbers on the screen, then flashed a triumphant grin.

“Click.” She took the photo.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

Like a crazed lioness, I burst through the ICU door and charged in.

The doctors and nurses at the station jumped at my shout and all turned to look.

Tiffany looked startled by my sudden entrance, but there wasn’t a trace of panic on her face.

Unfazed, she calmly reinserted the breathing tube before I could reach the bedside.

The alarm stopped, and my dad’s vitals slowly started to climb, but his face had grown even paler and more lifeless than before.

My heart felt squeezed by an invisible fist, a pain so sharp I could barely catch my breath.

“Why did you pull out my dad’s tube?!” I stared her down, my voice shaking with rage.

Tiffany batted her big, innocent eyes, her sweet face showing a hint of wounded indignation. “Charlotte, you’ve got this all wrong. There was a mucus blockage in the patient’s tube—I was suctioning it. Standard procedure.”

Her voice wasn’t loud, but loud enough for the colleagues gathering at the door to hear clearly.

“Does standard procedure involve taking photos for Snapchat?!” I pointed at her phone, shaking with fury.