How i Died S3 E10: And Many More

Transcript: How i Died S3 E10: And Many More

This transcript is adapted from the episode’s original script, so the final audio may differ slightly.

INT. HOSPITAL ER – DAY

[Doctors are rushing around to patients in varying stages of care. Jon walks up to the center station. He taps on the counter.]

Jon: Doctor Gatz.

Amelia: Jon? What — what are you doing here?

Jon: I just got re-instated last night.

Amelia: That's great. Maybe you'll keep the job for more than a few weeks this time.

Jon: Ha. Listen… A couple months ago, when we spoke last, I didn't get the chance to really ask if… everything was okay between us. Or at least… civil. Before we didn't leave things–

Amelia: What do you want, Jon? I can be civil with you if you're just honest with me. And you never are. So… What is it you want?

Jon: Nothing. I'm not here to…

Amelia: Jon.

[Jon sighs.]

Jon: I'm not registered in the system yet. I was wondering if you could pull some hospital records for me.

Amelia: And there it is. Hmph. What files?

[She types her password into the desk computer.]

Jon: Hospital records for patients with… storm shock symptoms, from 1989 and onward.

Amelia: All of them?

Jon: Yeah. No matter how many it is.

[She types and clicks to navigate the files.]

Amelia: And what are you working on that you need these for, huh?

Jon: Just comparing some information.

[She clicks.]

Amelia: Mhm… Anyone in particular?

Jon: Nope.

[There's a beat.]

Amelia: Today's your birthday, isn't it? Happy birthday.

Jon: Thanks…

[The printer starts printing.]

INT. MORGUE OFFICE – DAY

[The office clock ticks in the background as Jon flips pages of papers. His chair squeaks as he moves.]

Jon: Patient file after patient file… So many people were hit with Storm Shock, it's unbelievable. And it had a pretty high mortality rate. I'm counting… thirty or so people who came in with symptoms that actually lived. Jesus…

[Jon hears the door open. Some is rolling a gurney in. Jon gets up, yelling out from the office.]

Jon: Crowley?

[He exits the office.]

INT. MORGUE – DAY

[As Jon enters, the gurney rolling stops.]

Klark: Oh… doctor Spacer. (beat) I wasn't aware you were back.

Jon: Hi, uh, doctor Klark. I just got back yesterday.

Klark: Ah. Well… I hope you don't mind if I use your lab one last time?

[He pushes the gurney further into the morgue.]

Jon: Of course. Is it a case?

Klark: Not officially, no. A patient of mine, from the trauma bay. He unfortunately passed on the table, and I'm conducting an autopsy to see if there's anything I missed.

Jon: Just you?

Klark: Were you expecting someone else?

Jon: Uhh, no. I meant like, no one else from surgery wants to know.

Klark: I'm sure they're curious, but they've got other patients. I had this surgery slates for four hours, but we barely made it through one.

Jon: You said a male patient, right? What happened?

Klark: I really don't want to take up any of your time, doctor Spacer. I can handle the autopsy.

Jon: Of course. Sure. I'll just be in my office. Let me know if you need anything, or…

Klark: I think I've got the lay of the land here. Thank you.

[Jon starts to walk back into the office. He stops.]

Jon: Actually, I'm going to grab a drink from the lounge. Can I get you a coffee or anything?

[He turns around, heading to the door.]

Klark: A tea would be great, if you don't mind.

Jon: Sure thing. Any particular kind?

Klark: Early Grey if they have it.

Jon: You got it.

[Jon exits the morgue.]

INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY – DAY

[Jon walks slowly through the hallway, looking for a ghost.]

Jon: Hello? Anyone here coming from surgery?

[No one responds so he goes into the lounge.]

INT. HOSPITAL LOUNGE – DAY

[There's a TV on in the corner of the lounge. A man is sitting on the sofa, barely watching. The man coughs. Jon walks up to the counter. He grabs two cups and fills them both with water. He picks up two teabags in paper packets. He turns around.]

Jon: Excuse me.

Man: Yes?

Jon: Were you just in surgery?

Man: I was, with my daughter. How's she doing?

Jon: Oh. I'm sorry. I think I'm looking for someone else.

Man: What?

Jon: Sorry about that.

[He walks toward the door.]

Man: What the fuck?

[Jon leaves.]

INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY – DAY

[There's no one else in the hallway.]

Jon: Hmmm…

[He swipes into the morgue.]

INT. MORGUE – DAY

[Jon walks over quietly.]

Klark: No underlying conditions presented at the time of admission. Patient was immediately rushed to critical care and then surgery with myself, doctor Miller, doctor Hameed and surgical nursing staff.

[Jon clears his throat. Dr. Klark turns around.]

Jon: Here's your tea, doctor Klark.

Klark: Thank you. Oh, uh– gloves.

Jon: Right.

[Jon places the cup on the counter.]

Jon: It'll be here for you.

Klark: Thank you.

[Jon walks back toward the office.]

Klark: Patient presented with broken pelvic bone, shattered femur and erratic heart rate upon initial admission–

Jon: Wow. What the hell happened to him?

[Klark turns around, not expecting Jon to still be there.]

Klark: Um… Not sure. (beat) He was homeless. Someone found him on the side of the road and called 9-1-1.

Jon: Jesus. That's terrible.

Klark: Yeah.

Jon: Do you even have a name? Or insurance?

Klark: We don't. He'd be a John Doe.

Jon: No one ordered this autopsy then, did they?

Klark: I'd like to know what happened. He deserves that, at least. (beat) Sorry to hold you up.

[Jon takes a step forward, placing his cup on the counter as well.]

Jon: Doctor Klark… Do you mind if I assist?

Klark: You don't have something more pressing?

Jon: Not until I hear from Crowley. Otherwise, just… paperwork and routine autopsies from upstairs.

Klark: Paperwork…

Jon: Yeah.

[Klark slides the box of gloves over to Jon.]

Klark: (smiling) Another set of hands couldn't hurt.

[Jon pulls out gloves and starts putting them on. Klark uses the pull-down microphone to record .]

Klark: Addendum to the autopsy notes: Doctor Spacer will be assisting going forward.

Jon: It's been a long time since I've done an autopsy like this.

Klark: Didn't you have colleagues assist at Hopkins?

Jon: Ah. Yeah… I meant like… (beat) It's been a long year.

Klark: I can only imagine.

[Jon snaps his gloves.]

Jon: What have you got so far?

Klark: Not much. You heard what he came in with?

Jon: Broken femur, pelvic bone, erratic heart rate.

Klark: Right. He was unconscious initially, entering shock.

Jon: So whatever happened to him was recent.

Klark: Most definitely. But even with his injuries, he shouldn't have died during surgery.

Jon: You slowed his heart rate quickly enough?

Klark: Correct. He was given a dose of morphine and IV.

Klark: Doctor Gatz admitted him, ordering an MRI, X-Ray and CT before he came to me. (beat) Scans revealed the aforementioned breaks, and bone shards present in the lower thigh muscles that would need to be removed. We took him into surgery with a fairly straightforward plan. After his heart rate was normalized, he was given a stronger anesthetic to begin surgery.

Jon: I don't see any track marks.

Klark: Neither did I. That's why I made the call for anesthesia.

Jon: But since he was homeless, he could've been on drugs.

Klark: His blood test revealed nothing in the past 24 hours.

Jon: But anything from his medical history could've been a risk with anesthesia.

Klark: Correct. (beat) It was a judgement call.

Jon: And now you're worried that the anesthesia killed him.

Klark: It's a possibility.

Jon: Are you covering your ass for an M&M?

Klark: There won't be an Morbidity and Mortality conference for a homeless patient.

Klark: The hospital admins couldn't care less. And with no family to be concerned…

Jon: So the autopsy is purely to know…

Klark: Where I made a mistake.

Jon: Shit…

Klark: I can continue this without you, if it's a frustrating case.

Jon: I mean… it is a frustrating situation regardless. Aren't you frustrated?

[Klark pauses.]

Klark: Yes. (beat) Very.

Jon: All the more reason to do it then.

Klark: Agreed. (beat) Thank you.

Jon: Look, Doctor Klark… You don't need to keep being so cordial with me. I was a dick to you the first few times we met.

Klark: You were under a lot of stress.

Jon: I don't need excuses made for me either. There aren't any. And I acknowledge that.

Klark: Seems Doctor Kim has helped, huh? (beat)

Klark: Ahem. Sorry. I shouldn't have said that.

[Doctor Klark clears his throat.]

Klark: Let's get back to the autopsy, if we can.

Jon: You're lead.

[Klark moves the tools over to him.]

Klark: Because of the surgery, he's already partially prepped for conducting theinternal exam. (beat) That was for the autopsy notes.

Jon: You and doctor Kim were close, right?

Klark: I'd really rather not talk about them.

Jon: You're right though — before it got… Ugly… The one thing I learned from therapy with Kim was to be accountable for the things I do. And say. And that's why I don't want you to make excuses for me. I'm an ass, lashing out. You didn't deserve that.

[They shift in silence. Klark clears his throat again. He hands Jon the metal retractors.]

Klark: Would you mind holding that side of the retractors? I've got to crack open his chest cavity.

Jon: Now it's a party.

[Jon holds the metal retractor as Klark cranks, slowly. Ribs spread and crack.]

Klark: Beginning internal exam by expanding the ribs.

Jon: Geez. That is a lot of internal bleeding.

Klark: His BP dropped radically in the OR. I thought I nicked an artery.

Jon: But you didn't.

Klark: I didn't. It was the first thing I checked. Nothing in the legs or pelvis was knicked. So I started opening his chest when his heart stopped. And I first saw the blood.

Jon: Damn.

[Jon pulls off the retractors. Klark digs through the chest cavity, squishing around.]

Jon: It had to be another major artery.

[Klark stops.]

Klark: I've got something. A torn jugular vein? It's… Destroyed.

Jon: Torn is an understatement. His neck is shredded. Was there a traveling bone fragment?

Klark: No. We would've seen it on the x- ray.

Jon: Hmmm. Where are the scans?

[Klark over there. Jon pulls back, taking off his gloves and throwing them in the bin.]

Klark: The damage goes for a few inches up the vein. He stood no chance.

Jon: Which means you didn't make a mistake.

Klark: It means we missed something initially.

[He pulls out a plastic type x-ray sheet. He holds it up.]

Jon: I'm seeing… Something on the x- ray.

Klark: Where?

[Jon walks the x-ray over. He holds it in front of Klark.]

Jon: Near the neck. Here.

[Klark studies it.]

Klark: We ruled that as a small crack. From whatever happened to him. Not something life threatening.

Jon: What if it wasn't a crack? What if it was… An object.

Klark: In his neck? There were no penetration marks, no blood.

Jon: It could've been there from before. Check inside him.

[Jon puts the chart back. Klark searches inside the dead man. Jon walks back over.]

Jon: Anything?

Klark: I don't know what I'm looking…

[He pauses, suddenly. He found something.]

Klark: …for.

Jon: What did you find?

[Klark pulls back out, holding something.]

Klark: A pin.

Jon: A surgical pin?

Klark: That's what it looks like.

Jon: Here. Let me put it under the microscope. It must have a serial number.

[Klark hands it to Jon. Jon takes it across the lab.]

Klark: A surgical pin in his neck…

Jon: It's got a serial. It was legit. Let me…

Klark: It was obscured inside the bone during the x-ray, but… the MRI was done afterward.

[Jon starts typing in the serial number.]

Jon: Giant magnet machines plus surgical pin equals bad.

Klark: The MRI must've moved the pin. It completely shredded his neck veins.

Jon: I got a match on the number.

[Klark comes over.]

Klark: You did?

Jon: It was registered to an Xavier Wallace during a collar bone break in 2002. (beat) He was from here. A military vet.

Klark: And he came back to live on the streets… To be all alone with no one.

[They pull back in silence.]

Jon: Without knowledge of the pin…

Klark: Don't.

Jon: He was unconscious with no ID. No medical history. There was no way to know he had surgery. Or that he still had the pin in him with how the x-ray looked. He needed an MRI after the accident. It wasn't anyone's fault, especially not yours in the OR.

[Klark gradually gets more heated during his rant, until he eventually curses.]

Klark: I disagree, doctor Spacer. We all failed him, at every step of the way. (beat) After serving our country, the state, the… government, failed him. The our own city for leaving one of our own out on the street… Failed him. And then doctor Gatz and I were just the last straw. This man died because no one could be bothered to give a… flying fuck about him.

[He takes a deep breath.]

Klark: There is no one that should feel better about his death.

[There's a tense silence, then Jon breaks it.]

Jon: Do you take every death this hard?

Klark: Thank you for your help, doctor Spacer.

[Klark goes to leave, taking off his gloves.]

Jon: Nathan, I wasn't being facetious. I was really asking. (beat) Because I couldn't do it. (beat) I became a pathologist, partly, because I couldn't deal with the stress of being in an OR and making life-changing decisions. I can't… have that kind of responsibility. I would take it this hard every time. I'm afraid of it. Of what that would do to someone. (beat) How do you… deal?

Klark: Silence.

Jon: Sorry.

Klark: No. (beat) That's how I deal with it. Silence. From the time I leave the hospital, until I open my car door at home, I sit in silence. No music, no podcast playing on the drive. Just… silent reflecting. (beat) This one hits especially hard. The thought of him being out there with no one… It reminds me of how I felt when I moved here. It's probably how you felt as well.

Jon: Is that why you've tried to be so nice to me?

Klark: I still think about them all, though. Patients from med school all the way until now. Twelve people have died on my table. Most were unavoidable, but they still eat at me. And I find myself sitting in my driveway for longer and longer every time it happens. Car off, sitting in the cold. (beat) I used to live close to the hospital. After I moved here, I thought it would be convenient. And then I reached my third patient who died on the table, and I sat in my driveway until the next morning, just… staring into space. (beat) I moved further away after that. The furthest house I could find, so I could drive in silence. (he laughs, half- heartedly) Pretty soon, I'll be commuting from a different state.

[There's a long silence. Klark shifts.]

Klark: Did his patient record list a next of kin?

Jon: It did.

Klark: Could you write down the name and number for me? I'm going to give them a call.

[Jon leans over, writing on a piece of paper.]

Jon: Of course.

[He rips it, handing it to Dr. Klark.]

Jon: Do you want me to process the body for you?

Klark: That would be… Thank you.

[He takes the paper, turning to leave.]

Jon: Nathan…

Klark: Yes?

Jon: After work, would you like to grab a drink?

Klark: Uh… No thank you, doctor Spacer.

[He throws his gloves away.]

Jon: Oh I didn't mean like a… I meant as colleagues. Instead of being alone.

Klark: I know what you meant. And I appreciate the offer. But, no. Thank you.

[He opens the door. He turns around just short.]

Klark: Thanks for the assist, Doctor Spacer. Glad to have you back.

[He closes the door. Jon sighs. He stands, going into the office.]

INT. MORGUE OFFICE – DAY

[Jon slumps back into the office chair. He starts shuffling through papers. He picks up the phone, dialing.]

Jon: Hey Crowley; it's Jon. Look, I know you said I should keep out, and I plan.

Jon: But before our meeting, I was looking into something I think you should know about. And before you get mad about full disclosure, this is just conjecture… something I noticed. (beat) I have a bunch of files on victims of the 1989 effects of Storm Shock. Patient files. Jake Drazzer, Frank Reynolds, Bianca and Becca are all on the list as patients of the hospital who lived after the effects. And I got to thinking: If the killer is replicating the effects of Storm Shock, they must somehow be involved. Maybe they were a victim themselves who lived and they were trying to kill others or something. I'm not sure. You know the serial killer mind better. But either way, the list of people might be a good starting point. (beat) Oh and… by the way… Did you know Officer Hart was on the list? I'm not sure if that's a breach of confidentiality, but he had symptoms in 1989. Not that he's the killer at all. Just… thought it was interesting. (beat) Anyway… If you want the files, just stop by, or call me back and I can come drop them off. That's the last I'll bother you about how your case is going. See you around.

[He hangs up.]