读者文摘:奇迹生还的男孩(3)

How was this kid even alive? Dr.Ebersole headed home to make some calls.

这个孩子怎么还活着？艾博索尔回家打了几个电话。

He knew they'd need to get the boy into the angiography suite¹ quickly to see exactly what the skewer² had damaged,

他知道他们需要尽快把男孩送进血管造影室，看看尖杆造成了什么损伤，

or still could damage, and then remove it while carefully monitoring its exit.

或者还会继续损伤什么，然后在密切监视下把它移除。

If it hadn't yet harmed any key vessels³, it could uncork something on its way out and cause a stroke or worse.

如果它还未伤害任何主要的血管的话，那么在移除时，它可能会造成破坏，导致中风或更糟的情况。

Using the angiography suite required a team of 15 to 20 medical staff.

使用血管造影仪器需要15到20名医护人员。

It would be tough to get the right people together so late on a Saturday evening.

在一个周六的大晚上把合适的人聚到一起不是简单的事。

But could the boy wait until morning? For now he was stable physically⁴, but what about mentally?

但是男孩能撑到第二天早上吗？现在他身体上很稳定，但是精神上呢？

What if he panicked, grabbing at the skewer? Everything depended on his state of mind.

万一他慌了，胡乱去抓尖杆呢？一切都取决于他的心理状态。

Dr.Ebersole asked the doctors in the pediatric ICU, where Xavier and his family waited, to talk to them and gauge⁵ whether he was brave enough to hold on.

在泽维尔和他的家人在小儿科重症监护室等候时，埃伯索尔医生和那里的医生进行了沟通，以评估这个孩子是否有足够的勇气坚持下去。

When Dr.Ebersole heard back from the hospital at 11:30, he made his final call of the evening.

11点半，埃伯索尔医生收到医院的消息后，他打了当晚的最后一个电话。

"We can wait until the morning," he told a fellow doctor. "The boy is on board."

他告诉一个同事，“我们可以等到明天早上，男孩还坚持得住。”

It was late now, almost midnight, and Xavier's ICU room was dim.

当时已经很晚了，接近午夜12点，泽维尔所在的重症监护室很暗淡。

He'd just told doctors he could stay calm a few more hours.

他告诉医生们，他只能再冷静几个小时。

He understood that his life depended on his not trying to pull out the skewer.

他明白，他能不能活下来取决于他能否忍住不把尖杆拔出来。

He remembered a scene from the movie Black Panther.

他想起电影《黑豹》中的一幕场景。

At the end, the hero, T'Challa, impales⁶ the villain⁷, Killmonger, with a spear through the chest.

最后，主人公提恰拉用一根长矛刺穿了恶棍克尔芒戈的胸膛。

Killmonger declares he's ready to die, pulls the spear out, and collapses⁹, dead.

克尔芒戈宣示他准备好灭亡了，拔出长矛，瘫倒，死去。

"Go to sleep, Bear," Xavier's mom told him now, holding his hand as she had almost nonstop since the accident.

泽维尔的母亲告诉他，“去睡觉吧，小熊。”母亲在泽维尔出事后几乎一直抓着他的手。

His head was still wrapped in gauze.

他的头依旧裹着纱布。

The four-pronged end of the skewer was still caked in mud; every-one had been afraid to try to clean it, lest it jiggle the skewer and cause injury.

尖杆的四个箭头仍然沾满了泥块；每个人都不敢去擦拭它，因为怕它触动了尖杆，造成伤害。

They could give him only painkillers¹⁰, which made him sleepy, but not sedation; that could make the tongue collapse⁸, suffocating¹¹ him.

他们只能给他吃止痛药，使他昏昏欲睡，但不能给他镇静剂；这会让他的舌头萎陷，窒息而死。

"When you wake up in the morning, this thing will be out," a nurse told him.

“当你早上醒来的时候，这个东西就不在了，”一个护士告诉他。

1 suite   

n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员

参考例句：

• She has a suite of rooms in the hotel.她在那家旅馆有一套房间。
• That is a nice suite of furniture.那套家具很不错。

2 skewer   

n.（烤肉用的）串肉杆；v.用杆串好

参考例句：

• I used a skewer to make an extra hole in my belt.我用扦子在腰带上又打了一个眼儿。
• He skewered his victim through the neck.他用扦子刺穿了受害人的脖子。

3 vessels   

n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人

参考例句：

• The river is navigable by vessels of up to 90 tons. 90 吨以下的船只可以从这条河通过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All modern vessels of any size are fitted with radar installations. 所有现代化船只都有雷达装置。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

4 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

5 gauge   

v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器

参考例句：

• Can you gauge what her reaction is likely to be?你能揣测她的反应可能是什么吗？
• It's difficult to gauge one's character.要判断一个人的品格是很困难的。

6 impales   

钉在尖桩上( impale的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• An angel's sword impales only the body; her righteousness penetrates the soul. 天使的利剑只能穿过身体，但她的正直却能透达内心。
• The selected card visibly impales itself onto the chain, leaving it in an impossibly linked condition. 那张观众选到的牌就在眼皮底下穿进项链，造成不可能的链接情况。

7 villain   

n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因

参考例句：

• He was cast as the villain in the play.他在戏里扮演反面角色。
• The man who played the villain acted very well.扮演恶棍的那个男演员演得很好。

8 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

9 collapses   

折叠( collapse的第三人称单数 )； 倒塌； 崩溃； （尤指工作劳累后）坐下

参考例句：

• This bridge table collapses. 这张桥牌桌子能折叠。
• Once Russia collapses, the last chance to stop Hitler will be gone. 一旦俄国垮台，抑止希特勒的最后机会就没有了。

10 painkillers   

n.止痛药( painkiller的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The doctor gave him some painkillers to ease the pain. 医生给了他一些止疼片以减缓疼痛。 来自辞典例句
• The primary painkillers - opiates, like OxyContin - are widely feared, misunderstood and underused. 人们对主要的镇痛药——如鸦片剂奥施康定——存在广泛的恐惧、误解，因此没有充分利用。 来自时文部分

11 suffocating   

a.使人窒息的

参考例句：

• After a few weeks with her parents, she felt she was suffocating.和父母呆了几个星期后，她感到自己毫无自由。
• That's better. I was suffocating in that cell of a room.这样好些了，我刚才在那个小房间里快闷死了。