Patricia scoffed that he didn’t know me. Colonel Carter ignored her, checked my pulse again, lifted one eyelid, and asked how long I had been having dizziness and blackouts. When I managed to whisper, “Months,” his expression became even more serious. Then he looked toward the judge and said, “She needs an ambulance.”
Nobody moved quickly enough. Maybe they were shocked, or maybe after listening to Daniel and Patricia call me a liar all morning, they had forgotten what a real medical emergency looked like. Colonel Carter’s voice suddenly thundered through the courtroom: “CALL 911!” The bailiff grabbed the phone, Judge Hanley came down from the bench, and Patricia finally stopped talking.
The paramedics arrived with oxygen, wires, a blood-pressure cuff, and a monitor they pressed against my chest. One of them stared at the screen and said my heart rate was thirty-six, while another called out a blood pressure so low that even I knew it was wrong. Daniel, standing several feet away, finally asked, “Is she actually—” but he could not finish the sentence. Colonel Carter looked directly at him and said, “Sir, she is not pretending.”
