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| Page Sixteen |
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John tried blinking his blurred vision into focus. He saw Kelly's lips moving, but couldn't hear a word he was saying... on account of that dang incessant 'ringing'! "Can you stop that noise?" he requested. Another wave of nausea washed over him. He shut his eyes tightly and lowered his throbbing head, "...please...stop that noise," he pleaded rather pitifully. "Man! You must a' really got your bell rung!" Kelly concluded. Gage ignored him and started struggling back up onto his feet. So, Chet draped the dazed paramedic's left arm around his neck, wrapped his own right arm around the whoozey man's waist, and began heading for the exit. ######################## Mike and Marco watched as their very vexed Commander climbed stiffly down from Big Red and began heading for the mansion's front door with long, deliberate strides. The Captain crossed the porch, pushed the not completely closed portal open and shouted, "GAGE! KELLY! OUT HERE! NO-OW!... THAT'S AN ORDER!" "Cap!" an extremely relieved Chet Kelly exclaimed, "Johnny's hurt!" Stanley rushed into the entrance hall to lend Kelly a hand with his burden. "Hurt?! What do yah mean 'hu-urt'?! How does someone get HURT retrieving a helmet?!" "I don't know," came back Kelly's equally perplexed reply. "He hit the back of his head somehow!" "What do yah mean 'somehow'?!" his furious Commander further demanded, "Didn't you SEE what happened?! You were supposed to be WITH him!" They carted their cargo over to the nearest bench and sat him down. Stanley stooped in front of the injured fireman and steadied him. "What happened, John?" No reply. "It's no use, Cap, " Kelly advised, "His ears must still be ringing, or something. I don't think he can hear us." Hank slipped his hand-held from his coat pocket and thumbed it, "HT 51 to Engine 51..." "Engine 51...Go ahead, Cap..." "Mike, Marco, bring me a backboard, a c-collar, the spare O2 and the trauma box!" the Captain requested. "Right away, Cap!" |
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Hank exhaled a weary sigh and handed his HT to Kelly. "Call it in!" he ordered and immediately began making a mental list of everything he had ever learned about treating head injuries. ::Keep movement to a minimum... apply cervical collar...maintain an airway... administer oxygen to minimize brain swelling...monitor circulation...check for cerebrospinal fluid...dress the wound without disturbing the underlying tissue... examine the patient for any other injuries.:: Station 51's Captain exhaled another exasperated sigh. Then he pulled the paramedic's penlite from his assessment pouch and began his initial patient survey. ########################## Roy was standing in the corridor in front of the Nurse's Station at Rampart General's Emergency Receiving, waiting for his partner to pick him up. The door to the Doctor's Lounge flew open and the ambulance attendants he'd just rode in with came hurrying out into the hall. The driver spotted DeSoto and waved him over. "You ain't gonna believe this," he declared as the paramedic came stepping up, "but we just got called back to that creepy house!" "You can't be serious!" Roy exclaimed. The driver nodded, "You wanna ride back with us?" "I'm waiting for my partner," Roy replied, and pointed to his pile of equipment cases. "You'll have a lot shorter wait if you come with us, " the other attendant piped up. "Our patient IS your partner!" DeSoto gulped in disbelief, but then ran over, gathered up his gear and went racing towards the exit. The paramedic beat the attendants to their ambulance. ########################## "Where did you find him?" a flustered Hank Stanley asked, upon finishing administering his first-aid. "He was standing right there," Chet replied and pointed to middle of the entryway. "He must've slipped and fallen down the stairs..." the Captain concluded. "I don't think so, Cap. The last time I saw him, he went into that library...where we found that lady with the big bump on the back of her head...the next time I saw him, he was standing right there...with a big, bloody bump on the back of his head. I heard this real loud 'ba-ang!' " Stanley stared up at the ceiling, "Why?! Why can't two grown men rescue one helmet--without one of them nearly being killed!" No reply followed. He frowned down at the barely conscious fireman on the backboard, "What am I gonna do with you, pal?! If I ever find out that you got hurt goofing off, I-I'll...." he let his threat just hang there in the air. The sound of an approaching siren grew louder and louder and finally stopped. Roy hurried into the entrance hall. Seeing the patient was packaged and ready to transport, the vertical paramedic told the two white-coated men who had accompanied him, "Let's go! I'll call it in on the way!" The attendants nodded. They transferred the horizontal paramedic's backboard from the hall bench to their stretcher, strapped it securely in place and began towing the patient out to their waiting ambulance. Roy watched them wheel his partner away and then turned to his Captain, "What happened?" "That's what I'd like to know!" Stanley smartly replied and passed his questioner his medical notes. "And that's what I intend to find out! Chet take the Squad! Mike, Marco, I want this house turned inside out!" "Aye, aye, Cap!" Kelly acknowledged. He snatched up the trauma box and gladly followed Roy out of the building. "He took a pretty hard blow to the back of the head. He's gonna need some stitches," the Irishman informed the still completely-in-the-dark paramedic. "Says he can't remember what happened. Claims he can't hear anything because there's a loud ringing in his ears..." |
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DeSoto gave his moustached informant a grateful nod and climbed up into the back of the ambulance with the bio- phone and their drug box. Kelly closed the doors, rapped an 'all clear' and then watched the vehicle pull away. He gave the creepy-crawly dwelling a parting glance, before heading for the Squad...with a shudder. He was really relieved to be leaving that 'way weird' 'banging' abode behind him--for good. ::Hopefully... :: ########################### "What are we looking for?" Mike wondered as they began a thorough search of the library. "His helmet," their confused Captain replied as the object of their search was not immediately clearly visible, "It has to be in here somewhere! He didn't have it with him when Chet found him..." Stoker stopped in mid-search and stood there, resting his hands upon his hips, "Cap, everything about this rescue has been really strange." "Yeah, Cap," Lopez agreed, "Maybe we should call the police?" "What? You two think somebody hit him over the back of the head and stole his helmet?" Stanley jokingly inquired. He saw the looks on their faces and realized that was exactly what they thought. "That's ridiculous!" "First, the rescue doesn't match the call..." Marco muttered, "Then, Johnny gets 'mysteriously' hurt..." "I think there's somebody hiding in this house!" Stoker stubbornly insisted. Lopez nodded his support of the Engineer's notion. "C'mon!" their Captain urged, "There's got to be an explanation to all this 'strange' business. When we find the helmet, I'm sure we'll find the explanation-- a reasonable explanation," their still skeptical Commander added, suppressing a smile all the while. ########################### An hour later, the three firemen finished their thorough, and exhausting, search of the house and regrouped in the entrance hall... empty-handed! Stoker sank wearily down onto the bottom step and wondered, "Well, Cap, are you convinced now?" Stanley sighed and tried rubbing some of the stiffness from the muscles in the back of his neck. "I'm convinced we're wasting our time here. C'mon! Let's get back to the Station. I wanna call the hospital." Lopez looked tremendously disappointed, "You're not going to call the police?" "And tell them what?" Hank wondered, "Hello, I'd like to report a missing helmet? I don't think that would go over too big." "Maybe not, " Mike admitted, "But what about attempted murder?" Stanley stared at his Engineer in total disbelief. "And I thought Gage had an overactive imagination! C'mon! Let's go get some sleep! It'll give your imagination a chance to rest, after running wild like that." But Stoker was undeterred. "Aren't you curious?" |
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Their Captain exhaled a sigh of complete exhaustion. "Mike, right now I'm more tired than curious. We can look for answers again in the morning...later this morning," he wearily tacked on, on his way to the exit. ########################## Fifteen minutes later, Station 51's Commander-In-Chief found himself on the phone in the rec' room. "Uh-huh...I see... Uh-huh," he paused to pass DeSoto's report on to his skeleton engine crew, "No fractures. No hemorrhaging. Just a mild concussion, a dozen stitches and a bunch of bruises..." Stoker and Lopez exhaled sighs of relief. "Already did! A replacement should be arriving any minute now. Right! Thanks, Roy!" the Captain concluded his conversation and returned the phone's handset to its cradle. "Thank God!" he exclaimed and began heading for his bunk. "Lights out in two minutes!" he warned. Mike flicked off the lights and then he and Marco followed their leader over to the dorm. ########################### Meanwhile, over in Rampart General's ICU... "Are your ears still ringing?" Dr. Kelly Brackett asked, upon completion of his very thorough examination of the pouting patient in Room 602. The frowning fireman shook his heavily bandaged head 'no'. "Good! You can hear me! How do you feel?" There followed a long silence. Kel' turned to the nurse, standing at his side and said, "Humph! His ears are working...but now he can't talk!" "I was always told if I couldn't say anything nice, I shouldn't say anything at all." Brackett cleared his throat and cracked a smile. "Well, I'm glad to see that little bump on the head hasn't caused you to lose your sense of humor!" "If I only got a 'little bump on the head', then why does my whole body hurt?" Gage complained, sounding every bit as grumpy as he looked. "Your whole body hurts because it's black and blue." "Did somebody beat me up?" "By the location of these bruises, I'd venture to say you fell down some stairs..." Brackett paused, to study his patient's reaction to his little disclosure. At the mentioning of the word 'stairs', a picture of a dark staircase had flashed through Gage's groggy memory banks. Then another fleeting mental image appeared. That of a motionless figure sprawled out on the floor at the foot of those dark steps. "Although Chet swears that's not possible..." the doctor paused again, "What is it Johnny? You remember something?" "I'm not sure. When you said stairs, I suddenly saw--" the paramedic stopped and stiffened. "Doc! Are any of the guys still here?!" "Roy and Chet are right outside. Why?" "I gotta talk to 'em! Hurry! It's important! Life and death important!" "All right. You get one minute," Brackett allowed, and began heading for the door, "But you have to promise to behave yourself!" he called back over his shoulder. John nodded. His doctor disappeared out into the hall. |
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Click the Defibrillator to Goto Page Seventeen :) |
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