 |
 |
|
 |
FULL MOON BLUES |
|
| PAGE EIGHTEEN |
|
Gage mumbled, out voted. "Ok ok ok, Got your point. Now Gil, if you don't level with me, I'm going to skewer you!" he said, menacing his injured hand. "Hey.." Chet said, grabbing Johnny's arm and pulling it back down again. "You'll loosen my bandaging there buddy.. I worked hard immobilizing that.." Then he checked his watch and saw that it was once again time to release Gage's tourniquet to let in blood flow. He let go the band. Johnny hissed in pain, glaring at Chet. " Agghh! Why didn't you do that when I was still unconscious?" he grimaced, watching a stream of blood well up inside and soak through his bandages. "I did do that. Five times.." Kelly complained. Then he played heavy eyes on the others. "Man, I don't know how you guys can get through your average workday as paramedics. Do you always get patients who mouth off as bad as Gage here? Talk about taking some heat. And I thought just dealing with an actual fire was bad. Johnny, stop being ungrateful. This is saving your hand. Not to mention saving your life.. And guess who's doing THAT.." He pointed proud thumbs at himself. "You're going to owe me big time.." Gage ignored Kelly. "Don't change the subject, Chet. Gil,...How's Cap?..Are you going to tell me at least that?" "Stable.." "The girl?" "Stable." "Me?" "Grumpy.." "Oh, haha.. And what about Marco?" The light moment in the room, fled. Roy spoke up. "We'll all hear about that once Brackett gets here. I see him coming. He's in the tan jumpsuit and he's brought along the big guns.. A huge, orange diagnostic field pack." He said, ducking low and peering through the open outside door to the boulevard. He could just see Kel making haste in their direction. Gage spoke up, as he too, could see the brown haired doctor coming. "Maybe that pack's for me. You know, surgical stuff. This rod's gotta come out of my hand. The artery's been nicked." "Don't count on it.. I'm seeing Atlanta CDC labels all over it.." Roy said. "What??" Johnny gasped. ---------------------------- |
 |
 |
|
******************************* From : "patti keiper" <pattik1@hotmail.com> Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] Deeper In.... Date : Sun, 27 Oct 2002 21:12:20 +0000 The shadow got nearer, and Kel came through the door into the bunk room. He paused a bit while his eyes got used to the dim lamps in the space and the first bed he focused on was Marco's. Roy stood from Johnny's stokes, shoving the stethoscope waving around his neck out of the way when it snagged on the edge of Gage's wire bed in his haste to get near Brackett to give him his report, "Doc, glad you're here. He's worse. Much worse. We're trying to cool him down some." "Oh? What was his temp?" "One hundred three, taken R." "Good thing for the ice down.." Dr. Brackett said as he checked what IV was strung and the flow of O2 running on his patient. Roy added more, "Marco's BP has become low enough to warrant that EKG, we've had a strip going ever since I got a basement BP, about five minutes ago... Glad you ordered that epinephrine for him earlier. I think that's the only thing keeping him viable here." Brackett was studying the EKG strip Gil had stretched out on a table top and the live one showing on the station's heart monitor. "Ok, I want a twelve lead here from this double one. See that arrythmia in the QRS interval. That's most likely pathological." That hushed up everyone. Until Brice spoke up. "We knew he was sick. That was apparent on initial findings." "Yes, but have you ever seen someone with a cold downgrade so fast?" Kel said. Roy, Gil and Brice all looked at each other in alarm. Roy didn't even have to say anything. Then he eyed the bag Brackett had brought with him. "You know something we don't doctor? I recognize the insignia on that pack of yours.." Brackett made sure there were no civilians in the room near them who would overhear. Then his face fell into serious doctor. "I called the CDC on Marco's symptoms just before I flew out of the heliport. I remembered why Lopez's presentation seemed so familiar to me." "Doc, don't keep us in suspense here." Johnny said from his stokes. He had an elbow propped up behind his dirty head and had Bonnie on top of his stomach, calming her fretting with absent strokes. He had pulled off his nasal cannula so he could get it out of his face. "Did you know that Marco left the country recently?" "Yeah,.." Gil said. "Roy just told us here that he and his mother were attending a funeral for a cousin. A young boy.." "Well that young boy is the center of attention right now in Atlanta. Seems he died of an unknown hemorrhagic syndrome that's already claimed seven in Mexico City.." "Have they identified it?" "No, that's why I'm here. There's every chance that Marco has run into the same bug that's killed the boy.. His etiology so far, is following the same lines as the boy's did before he died." Dr. Brackett said, pulling Roy's stethoscope off and using it around the EKG leads on Marco's chest.. Johnny Gage nearly levitated from where he was lying. Only the straps holding him in the stokes, kept him there. "Are you telling me that Marco's got some kind of fast acting lethal plague?" "That's exactly why I'm here Gage. To either confirm or rule out just that scenario. Atlanta CDC's already on their way. They should be here by nightfall." Kel said. |
 |
 |
|
"But we're in the middle of a disaster zone. We don't have time for a quarantine situation." Johnny protested. "Tell that to the bug, Johnny. It was here days before that earthquake even so much as twitched." Chet blanched. "Wait a minute, wait a minute.. Does that mean the rest of us might get sick from this thing?" Dr. Brackett nodded reluctantly. "It's a possibility, but the course of the disease is still in the guessing stages. Seven cases taking place in another country with a language barrier in the way puts a damper on fast information exchange. We're working on it. Now my job here is to isolate Marco best I can until we GET those answers gentleman. And I'm sorry to say, but this room and station is off limits to anyone on the outside. Anyone who's had direct contact with Lopez, is staying right here." Roy spoke quickly when Kel placed a hand on Marco's chest, pressing down the stethoscope's drum, trying to hear breath sounds over the noise of helicopters landing and taking off just outside the station house. "Shouldn't we just get him out of here to an isolation ward?" |
|
|
|
|
FULL MOON BLUES |
|
|
Click Rescue Squad to Goto Page Nineteen :) |
