Rating: R (For Graphic Images)

Genre: Medical Drama

Overview: A giant earthquake strikes a landlocked country and a single doctor struggles to aid hundreds of injured patients who flock to her. From a doctor's perspective, see the devastation that occurs during and after a massive earthquake.

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Doctor Sidra was performing an appendectomy when the ground shook. It was as if they were in a sealed jar, trembled by Poseidon himself. She was making an incision along the right lower abdomen when the jarring of the Earth caused her to thrust the scalpel inside the boy's body like a knight succeeding in a joust.

Dr. Sidra had no nurses to help her out, nor an aid. The boy was lucky she was available to help out. Many doctors would reject such a child citing other worries and ailments that needed attending to. But Dr. Sidra knew that without medical attention, this boy would die. She decided to carry out the brief surgery and carry on with her other patients in need.

When she noticed that the scalpel was a couple of inches deep within the boys stomach she tried pulling it out gently. But the shaking prevented her from doing so. The ceiling crackled like fireworks and pebbles trickled down from above. The pebbles soon turned into rocks, stones, and debris. Finally a chunk of the ceiling about the size of a small child landed on the boy's head.

Dr. Sidra backed away from the explosion of blood that spread across the room. She loss her balance and fell on the ground. Another piece of debris the same size that had landed on the boy also landed in the spot where she was standing. She got up and made her way for the exit. She glanced back at the boy who was being stoned to death by nature.

When she made it outside the ground was still shaking. People were huddled in street corners wondering what to do. They couldn't take shelter, because the shelter would kill them, just as it had killed the boy-whose name Dr. Sidra felt ashamed she did not remember.

18 seconds had passed and the Earth started to form cracks along the sidewalks and on the poorly paved streets. Dirt roads split open, swallowing up cars and any person who happened to be standing at the fault where the Earth opened its mouth.

22 seconds had passed and entire buildings were collapsing. People within the buildings were being buried alive. Large explosions occurred in a chain as houses with gas stoves exploded like a volcano. Debris, dust-and body parts spread everywhere.

23 seconds and Dr. Sidra was running in the middle of the street trying to find some place where she can be safe. She glanced everywhere and found nothing. All the buildings were falling apart, and all the streets were splitting apart.

25 seconds and the Earth was subsiding. The shaking was easing, like a washing machine coming to a stop. The noise of the Earth rumbling was replaced with the moaning and crying of thousands. Children cried, parents yelled, others moaned and many were silent.

Dr. Sidra felt her face and her hand returned to her eyesight covered in blood. She wasn't sure whose blood was it. She might had been grazed by a falling stone on the way out of the hospital, or the blood might have been from the boy whose head exploded like a watermelon implanted with a grenade. Then she felt something on her cheek and she went to grab it. She peeled whatever was attached to her face and held it to her eyes.

It was a human ear.

She tossed it aside as if it was a tarantula that had been creeping on her body. She knelt to the ground and covered her eyes with her bloody hands. Tears washed away the blood on her hands. Her long black hair was in tatters. Chunks of flesh and blood were entangled in the web of her hair. He brown skin was darkened with rubble remains. One of her fingernails had been chipped off completely. She had a gash on her forehead that was barely oozing blood, since dust covered it like sand on a shoreline. Yet the only pain that registered was the pain in her heart. The boy suffered a horrible death. He was too young. Her nation was in ruins. People crawled through the streets missing legs and others missing loved ones. Many were clawing at the rubble like a cat raking against a door to break free from a room. They yelled and then listened, hoping to get a response from beneath the rubble.

A woman wandered throughout the streets holding her unconscious child in her hands. The girl was no more than five years old. She had a slash on her head that was pouring out blood. Her mother was trying to stop the bleeding with her clothing.

Dr. Sidra saw the bleeding child and ran to help. It was the least she could do. Even with her injuries, she was not as bad as those around her. She reached in her pocket for a towel and withdrew the mother's cloth. The wound was covered in grime and filth. The girl had multiple ruptured veins. She would need stitches if the bleeding ever stopped. The pressured the towel on the girl's gash and told the mother to keep her hand on it.

The mother pleaded for help and Dr. Sidra motioned for the mother to follow her to the ruined hospital. A majority of the hospital was damaged, but the lobby remained somewhat in tact. She pointed for the mother and child to sit by a chair covered in debris while she made her way in the back to find medical supplies. She traversed rocks, concrete, desks, chairs, and cabinets and eventually found a storage room that was leaking a limited amount of supplies. Most of the jars of medicine and pain relievers had been damaged and were spread across the floor. She reached for a needle and some stitches. She found some rubbing alcohol and multiple gauze pads.

She made her way back into the lobby. When she had left to retrieve some medical supplies she had left a mother and a young injured girl in the lobby. When she returned a couple of minutes later she found over twenty people accompanied with injured relatives. When she entered the lobby they all called for her help.

She saw a teenager whose arm was bleeding profusely. He had definitely damaged an artery and was losing gallons of blood by the minute. Another man was bleeding from his right eye as a piece of shrapnel was lodged inside. An eight month pregnant women was limping with a broken leg. Multiple people had gashes on their heads, broken arms, collarbones, and pieces of shrapnel embedded within various areas of the body.

Each injured family member was accompanied by another family member who was slightly less injured. The able-bodied family members all pleaded their cases for her to help their loved one. Many of them used the looming state of death as a point of reference for aid.

Dr. Sidra was overwhelmed. She could not help all of them at once. She would have to work in order of importance. First she attended the mother she brought into the lobby. She removed the blood soaked towel from the girl's head and ripped open a packet containing a large gauze pad. She dabbed some rubbing alcohol on it and applied it to the girl's forehead.

She instructed the mother, "Keep pressure on it."

The mother thanked her through the tears that trickled down her cheek. She knew that would not solve it. She would have to stitch the wound up, but she had bigger problems. Dr. Sidra moved on to the teenager who had a damaged artery. A Niagara Falls of blood drained the boy's body of color. His tan skin was bleaching pale. She had no time to perform a surgery, nor did she possess the equipment. She covered the wound with multiple gauze pads and preceded to tear off her belt and grabbed a metal rod to make a tourniquet. She tied a knot with her belt two inches above the teenager's wound. Once she tied it tight she slipped the metal rod atop of the knot and tied another overhead knot. She then twisted the metal rod to her right until the bleeding stopped. Finally she tied it in place and left the boy resting.

She ordered the boy, "If it starts bleeding again twist it to the right."

Her tourniquet had managed to stop the blood flow to the wound of the body preventing any further blood lost. However, this would only be a temporary solution, as he would need the artery to be repaired within 4-5 hours or the muscles around the wound would decay due to lack of blood flow and require amputation.

She was moving onto the man who had a piece of shrapnel in her eye when the ground started shaking again. The people started screaming and the children began crying. Pieces of debris began to fall on people.

Dr. Sidra didn't want to risk a repeat of what happened with the boy she was operating on earlier, "Everyone get out of the lobby."

She lead the way out of the lobby as the Earth shook for a second time. This time, the shaking only lasted ten seconds, but it surely did as much damage. Already weakened structures began to cave in and the lobby was one of them. Luckily, Dr. Sidra managed to get out many of the people from the lobby. However, those with broken legs remained trapped inside.

Dr. Sidra still had some medical supplies on her and she looked for the patient with the damaged eye, but couldn't find him. She thought that he might not have been able to see his way out of the dark lobby. She immediately felt guilty, wishing she had escorted him out instead of worrying about getting herself out alive. She looked for the pregnant woman with the broken leg and prayed to God that she had made it out alive.

But there was no sign of her.

Dr. Sidra fought back tears as she went on to help the next patient. Soon flocks of people gathered around her pleading for her help so much in unison it sounded like a chant in a crowded football stadium.

She went from person to person aiding multiple people of multiple ages with multiple injuries. She bandaged up a baby's head, who was suffering from a wide gash and a concussion. She popped a man's foot into place after it had twisted into the opposite direction.

Multiple patients were brought to her that she could not help, even with the greatest technology and supplies. One child's head had been damaged so badly by fallen debris, he looked like a bruised and beaten apple. His head had craters the likes of the moon. Another woman had lost so much blood that it was impossible for her to recover. All Dr. Sidra could do was stop the bleeding and help slow her into death.

Throughout the day she tended to approximately 200 patients. It wasn't until nightfall when some of the government trucks came, delivering medicine, food, water and a few doctors to help tend to the ill. However, it would take a nation of doctors to aid the masses of injuries people. The trucks came with four doctors, while the crowd of injuries people had grown to over 700 and counting.

The streets were filled with darkness. Mobile tents were in the process of being set up to perform fast-pace surgeries. The sick were lying on the cracked grounds. It was difficult to distinguish the dead from the sick, since they lied intermingled with one another.

As the first tent was about to be completed a second aftershock occurred. The people screamed in terror, begging the Earth to stop and have mercy on them. The few structure that had been left standing were raked from the Earth. Search crews were buried under remnants of buildings, hindering the rescue efforts.

The aftershock lasted only seven seconds, but it raped an already beaten landscape. The area had looked like an atomic bomb had gone of. Everything was in ruins. People took to the hot and muggy streets as their new home.

Then it started to rain. The rain turned to hail and the hail was accompanied by lightning and thunder. There was no shelter to take to. Everyone was exposed in the open cowering with each flash of lightning, hoping they wouldn't get struck with a bolt of electricity.

Dr. Sidra couldn't tell if it was sweat or rain, but her body felt on fire. The rain didn't cool her off. It felt like it was actually raining fire and brimstone. She was running on no food and the only water she had was the hot water that fell from the sky. She had been working for 20 hours straight. She was beyond tired. She and the other four doctors managed to care for over 500 patients, but the numbers continued to rise. With each patient treated, four more rolled in on makeshift stretchers or simply carried and placed on the desk that was a new operating table lit by a sole oil lamp.

Throughout the night two more aftershocks rocked the area, each about five seconds in length. More blood curling cries filled the city streets like wolves howling at the moon. The storms parted within a couple of hours and by dawn some people had been rescued from the rubble and brought to the five doctors for care.

It was at this point when they were completely out of medical supplies. They called on government soldiers and aid workers to call in more supplies, but the lines were down and supplies were low nation-wide. International aid couldn't enter the country as the airports were in ruin and the area was a landlocked country.

Dr. Sidra had been up for more than 24 hours when she collapsed on the ground. Her body shutdown and one of the four doctors helped her to a chair then continued with his work.

The jolting of a brief aftershock woke Dr. Sidra up. She realized she had been out for a couple of hours and got up to help more patients. She ran into one of the doctors who was escorting a man carrying his next patient onto the operating table.

The doctor ignored her until he needed assistance, "Help me seal this artery."

Dr. Sidra did as she was told and assisted in sealing the artery. Once the patient was taken care off, another one rolled in.

She turned to the doctor, "How many more?"

The doctor pointed to the entrance of the tent, "Why won't you take a look for yourself. But don't be too long."

Dr. Sidra peeked outside the tent and saw a sea of people lined up for medical assistance.

At this rate, she would be assisting people until she died, which would be very soon if no more supplies came in.

She pulled her head back in.

And then the Earth shook again....