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"Mathers?" his eyes involuntarily shifted back into the direction of the scared little boy resting out of sight nearby. He bent close to the woman's ear. "Julie.. can you tell me if you have a little boy or not?" "I.... yes. It's Jeffrey." she said muzzily during a lucid moment. "The three of us just wanted...*cough* to take a little trip..." she groaned. Mathers screamed when something on top of her under the train car, shifted. Immediately the men around her, froze, listening to the creaking mass around them. Bloody tears leaked out her eyes and Roy saw tiny blood vessels start to burst in them. ::Traumatic crush injury..:: DeSoto identified. "Julie," said Roy urgently. "Listen to me. We've got your son out. He's ok. And so's his father. We...Jeffrey's right here at the top of the hill. Do you hear me? Jeffrey's ok.. And Mr. Mathers only has a broken arm. He's waiting for us at the First Aid Station." "J---ff? And Jared?" she gasped hoarsely. She began to fade again and so did her brief smile. Mrs. Mather's eyes began to close as breathing suddenly became more difficult. "No, no.. no. " ordered Roy. "Julie? Open your eyes. Can you hear me?" he said, rubbing some knuckles into her breast bone. "You've got to stay awake as long as you can. We need your help." Julie jerked and blinked. "W-where's Jeffrey?" she panted, then a jolt of pain made her cry out. "Thirty feet away from us. He's safe." Roy replied, cupping her face into his hands. "Just keep focusing on me and not the train, all right?" replacing the lighter oxygen mask tightly over her mouth. "We'll have it off of ya as soon as we can." "I--I want to see him." she bubbled, gripping Roy's hand tightly with her own bloody one. DeSoto didn't know what was best. ::Should we spare the boy? By not letting him see his mother like this? Or should we bring him down here? In order to give her a good reason to live?:: Right then, Dr. Brackett and Dixie McCall arrived. "Roy, what do you got?!" Roy's head shot up. "Traumatic chest or abdomen." he answered instantly. "B.P.'s 104. Respirations 26 and shallow with active oral bleeding. She's positioned left lateral, recumbent. Something's pressing her down badly. There's petechiae all over. Scleral, too." "Two large bore Ringer's Lactate I.V.s, wide open. But only if her chest's clear." "Got them right here. Her lung sounds are still dry. That blood's from a tongue bite." Brackett's face twitched. "Ok, get em in and running." DeSoto had to peel off Julie's powerful grip on his hand, which had left bruises behind. "How's her consciousness level?" Dixie asked from another direction above him. "Awake, groggy. Drifting when she gets tired of trying to breathe. We've been helping her. Also, she's feeling a fair amount of pain here." Roy said, swabbing down places on Julie's arms for the I.V.s. "I'm coming down there with some MS." Kel said, aiming a flashlight at Julie's face. "Keep that ambu handy. How soon until she's extricated?" Roy looked to Chet. |
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"Don't know Dr. Brackett. She's in here real tight. A whole crew was radioed a few min-" Cap's shout interrupted him. "They're right there." Kelly amended, continuing to dig with his gloves at Roy's feet, dog paddling dirt away from a hole as fast as he could so a circular saw could fit inside of it easily. Kel leaped into the space Chet had made and soon injected the pain medication. "What's her name?" he asked Roy. "Mrs. Julie Mathers." said four people. Brackett glanced around with a nod and he crouched down next to Roy. A firemen handed him a helmet to wear and he put it on. "Mrs. Mathers. I'm Doctor Brackett. I just gave you something to help with the pain. Tell me, can you feel your legs or anything below your waist?" Julie nodded. "I feel....everything." she grunted with effort. "Where's Jeffrey? Please.. I want to see my son right n--" and she stiffened as another shift in the car jolted through her. Mather's eyes bugged out when an inexorable pressure landed on her stomach. She started to purple and her consciousness suddenly struggled, desperately. Brackett yelled. "Get it off her now!" he shouted, gripping her chin around the cervical collar as two sets of hands began using the ambu bag to try to get oxygen back into Julie's lungs. Animation left Mather's features and she started to convulse as blood flow began to cease going into the lower half of her body. "Anything getting in doc?" Roy asked, snatching up an endotrachial tube. "No tube! The problem's because her lungs are being compressed. Get it off her guys ASAP. We've no ventilations!" Brackett yelled. Captain Stanley and Marco worked the fastest K-12 cutting arcs they had ever made, one from each side, until they met in a semi circle at the top. Many hands punched the severed piece in and then lifted it out as soon as it cooled enough to touch. |
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Julie's chest rose suddenly when the wall section's heaviness left it. She was quickly hyperventilated until her color returned to normal and until she began to resist it once more, moaning in feeble complaint. A floodlamp from above then illuminated the newly freed gap leading inside the train. Dixie gasped. Brackett and Roy and all the rescuers paused in shock. A four inch by four inch pole had been driven through Julie's stomach just below the level of her diaphragm on her right side. Kelly's voice shouted bright and scared. "There's another victim in here! He's been impaled on this thing, too! Through his lower abdomen." and he grabbed the nearest body part to him, a man's bare foot, that was jutting out from under a chunk of metal, to test for circulation. The new victim's voice began to scream. "I'm here. I'm alive! Agh.. Get me out. Please. Get me out of here! I've been s-stabbed." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kel Brackett's mind was racing. He had done everything he could to arrange things. Julie Mathers merited an emergency surgical attempt to save her life lying right where she was. But so did the second man lying beneath her. The Rampart physician took the stethoscope cups out of his ears slowly. ::What should I do?:: Scott Kincaid was dozing fitfully under his two I.V.s and he was still mumbling, begging for escape. The firemen had asked Kel repeatedly if he wanted them to cut the pole between the two with their saws in order to get them out of the train but he refused to let them. "The vibrations and movement from any cutting will most likely kill both of them! You know as well as I do that the pole is acting as a tourniquet internally. No, we're gonna have to operate on them as soon as we get it freed using something with less impact, an arc welder perhaps. Then we can slide them both off it when it collapses." Brackett outlined to the fire and rescue crews. All the men looked at each other uncomfortably. Roy grabbed Kel's arm. "There's only one of you, doc. They will both bleed massively once they're freed. And there's no way you can operate on both of them at the same time...not fast enough.." he urged, the situation was already very clear in his mind in a surge and Brackett saw that his senior paramedic's eyes were painfully haunted. "I know that. This is triage, Roy..." he said, filling the noisy hole with a sudden calm horror. "Pick one." "Don't ask me to make that kind of choice, Doctor Brackett." DeSoto whispered hollowly, stepping away from the bloodied doctor, angling his dusty head. "I can't. " he gasped. "Not ever." |
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"Then let me make it for you. You are relieved of the responsibility." Kel said firmly, hardening. "You can't play god with their lives..." Dixie said to Kel forcefully, her face paling. "No one should." "What other choice do I have?" Kel said a little loudly, crouching between his two now stabilized, gravely injured patients. He swept both his hands out into a frustrated shrug. From the ground below them, a weak feminine voice sighed. "You can let US decide who. It's our lives, doctor. Not yours. " Julie Mathers and Scott Kincaid were lying quietly and both their sets of eyes were silently watching them all, glazed from pain medications. Between them, their hands were clasped calmly together for comfort as if Julie had never uttered such a horrible statement. "But first, let me see my son." the mother requested. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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************************************************************************** From: "Cassidy Meyers" <killashandraRey@hotmail.com> Date: Thu Sep 16, 2004 10:08 am Subject: Miracle Baby.. Dr. Early and Dr. Morton met Johnny Gage at the emergency desk at a run. They both were in blue surgical gowns, but Mike already wore his blue mask while Joe's was still dangling around his neck. Johnny puzzled at that odd observation for a total of two seconds. Then Dr. Early spoke, breaking his curiosity. "Treatment Four, we're already set up, Johnny." Joe told the busy paramedic. "Has she started breathing on her own yet?" Gage spoke between the puffs of air that he was giving the baby and he let himself be guided to the right place. "About one every four, doc. She's really cold. But her pulse's hanging in there." he said, pulling off the cannula he wore for the infant. An orderly took the oxygen cylinder out from under his arm just as it fizzled out the last psi. The doors to the treatment room opened on a surgical setup. "This isn't sterile, Johnny. Set her down." said Joe, patting the exam bed while he gloved up and put on his mask. Mike Morton got busy with a warming probe and he started calibrating a respirator to the baby girl's size and age. "She's young.." Gage nodded. " Dix said she's about twenty weeks old. This is paramedic Bob Bellingham's little girl. He was on the train because he was off duty on vacation. My guess is that he was on his way into the city for a pediatric doctor's visit." "H*ll of a way to get one." said Morton through his surgical mask while he flicked the baby's feet to test for her awareness level. Gage carefully set the limp baby girl down on the treatment bed, supporting her head and spine. Joe Early immediately listened to her chest with a stethoscope while Morton set a neonate positive pressure O2 mask over her face. "I've a rate about 150. " he said, looking at Johnny for a reason why it was so high. |
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"I looked her over really good. Her sternum's swollen but intact." Johnny said. "That tach's not trauma related. Brackett ordered some serious epinephrine. That might be why she's racing." "How much?" Morton asked. ".01 mg of 1/10,000. " Gage replied, as he stuck baby sized EKG pads and leads onto the distressed infant lying between them under the exam light. "Ok, thanks Johnny, we got it from here. Nice work bringing her back." "No problem, doc. Bob'll be flying in to you on the next trip. He's been in and out of consciousness. I just thought I'd warn you. He might be a handful trying to find out where his daughter went to." Mike nodded. "I'll tell Carol once we've stabilized her condition." "Is it bad out there?" Joe asked Johnny. "Yes. We're still doing Initial Triage, with Dixie and Brackett at the head of the main team. We're at Car 52 out of 102." Morton whistled through his mask. "That's a big passenger train. Get set for massive casualties once you hit the sleeper cars." "Sleeper cars?" Gage said, watching the two doctors examine the baby for injuries beyond the obvious ones. "Yeah. Amtrak commuters pay a premium for a two by five foot cubby bunk recessed into a wall." Mike gave a shudder. "I never get a ticket for one myself. Reminds me too much of a coffin." "Maybe those provided some protection to the riders.." Johnny thought. "Being that they weren't in a lot of space to get thrown around in too much during the derailment." Morton shook his head in disagreement, making a noise of negation. "Most likely that snugness backfired. Doesn't take much to crush in the roof of a train car." Johnny frowned at that. Gage sighed, mentally letting go of his tiny patient. "I'd better get back. Chopper's waiting. You're sure she's gonna be all right?" he said pointing his talkie antennae at the bed as he backed up reluctantly, not wanting to leave his patient. |
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Joe grinned. "I guarantee it. She's checking out over 90%" "Good. That's real good, docs. Thanks." Johnny said, looking very paternal. "Say, Johnny.." said Dr. Early. "Yeah?" "When you get back, check in with Dr. Brackett, ASAP. He mentioned something about emergency field surgery at Car number 50." "That'll be Roy's case. He was working with an entrapment. I'm on it." and then Johnny turned with an effort and was gone. "Devoted, isn't he?" Morton remarked. "That's what makes him one of the best." Joe commented. The fluting tones off the EKG monitor rose another ten beats a minute and Joe ordered the baby sedated to rest her metabolism and heart. He got down to business and started to intubate the tiny baby. Mike blinked around his surgical cap and mask. "Will she need the crich?" "No, a 2.5 worked just fine. Let's get her hooked up to the bird." he ordered. "Set it to fifty percent in case she's got some pulmonary bruising from the CPR." Joe smiled and stroked the sleeping infant's face with a finger. "What a lucky little girl. Six fragile pounds against 400 tons of crashing locomotive and all she's got to worry about is a little hypothermia.. Absolutely amazing.." |
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************************************************************** From: "Champagne Scott" <chameleonkate@hotmail.com> Date: Thu Sep 16, 2004 2:02 pm Subject: How You Leave the World Behind... Dixie lowered her head so the sudden tears erupting in her eyes, wouldn't be seen. She waited to see how Kel reacted to his patients getting involved in their own life saving or death decision. Dr. Brackett immediately addressed Julie's concern. "I have no intention of keeping you separated from your son, Mrs. Mathers. In fact, I'll send my paramedic right now to go fetch him." and he nodded up at Roy to leave the hole and get the boy. "We were just simplifying things until we learned the physical conditions of both you and Mr. Kincaid." "Simplifying.. Yes, " Scott coughed into his oxygen mask. "That's what we're going to be doing, isn't it?" Brackett remained silent, as he took first Scott's blood pressure, then Julie's to mark the new readings on their triage tags. Julie started weeping and Dixie went immediately to her side to hold her hand. "Shh,.. we'll figure this out. I-It doesn't have to be this way.." she whispered. "Let Dr. Brackett think a moment." Mrs. Mathers' weeping created spasms along the pole spearing her and she grasped at it reflexively in a choked silent scream. Dixie helped hold it still, along with Marco. "Give the morphine time to work." Kel said. "Another five minutes." Scott was shocky and bitter. "Is that how long we have? Another five minutes?" he gasped, helping his attending firemen hold Julie's pole that was impaling him, too, steady, while others bound his wound to control his bleeding. "Forgive me doctor, for a little gallows humor on my part. It's just that these circumstances are more....*choke* than bizarre. I'm a lawyer and so this strikes me as just a bit......funny. I didn't expect to go this way when I got up this morning." Julie almost started laughing through her grief and fear because of shock and the morphine. But then she filled with uncontrollable sobbing when Scott's joke silenced. Mr. Kincaid caught her grief and magnified it. Scott kept tight hold of Julie's hand the whole time he spoke to his rescuers. "We're perfect strangers," he said of himself and Mrs. Mathers. "And yet I feel like I can't ever let go of her." |
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"Mr. Kincaid.." Kel began. "I'm so sorry. But we have to hurry. The hemorrhaging you both are experiencing will soon reach a critical point. Surgery will have to begin immediately." "Scott. We can't let them go through....*gasp* what we're going through. It's..not right for us to make them choose........who lives......and who dies.." Mathers groaned making eye contact with the man. Kincaid's face twisted in sudden remorse and sadness. Then he mumbled. "Can you all leave us alone for a moment?" Reluctantly, the firemen, nurse and doctor retreated out of the hole. When they were gone, Scott drew a bloody coin out of his pocket and he opened up Julie's fingers one by one tenderly before he set it onto her trembling palm. "This is the only thing I can think of for us to do. I guess I can live or die by the outcome. Money always talks anyway. *cough* Heads or tails?" "Heads." Julie said woozily. "Ok, I've got tails. Ready?" and Scott hefted their joined hands up for a toss of the fateful quarter into the air... "Ready.." she replied. *Pingggggggg......* The flying piece of bloodstained silver glinted in the light. |
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roy arrived back with a bundled Jeffrey Mathers following along behind and he knelt by the boy and told him that his mother was under the train. "Don't be afraid, Jeffrey. Your mother's been given some medicine and she isn't feeling her injuries. She's... she wants to see you." "Is she going to get out of the train?" "We're still working on it." DeSoto answered truthfully. "Yes, sir.." said the frightened boy. He took Chet Kelly's hand long enough to climb down under the lantern lights and into the hole. At the sound of her son's approach, Scott and Julie both covered where the pole had gored them with a free blanket so the child would not see it. And then they both let go of their desperate stranger bonding hand clasp. Julie quickly dried her face and held out her arms to her son. "Jeffrey?" Jeffrey rushed into them and into a deep hug. "Mom. I was so scared, but they took really good care of me. Dad's ok. A policeman is trying to find him right now so he can come see you, too, but they said it might take a long time to find him." Julie started crying anew at the mention of her husband. "That's ok." she said smothering him full of kisses and she smoothed his hair down around the dried blood and dirt that had crusted there. "And soon, you'll get to the hospital where you can get cleaned up. Won't that be nice?" she said, hiding a grimace of pain from the pole getting bumped by Jeffrey's back. Jeffrey looked up from his mother's embrace. "Who's that?" he asked pointing to Mr. Kincaid lying nearby. "That's Scott, another train passenger. He works in the city as a lawyer, just like what you want to be when you grow up." "Hi Scott. " "Hi Jeffrey.." said Mr. Kincaid. "Are you ok?" |
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"Yes." replied the dirty, bloody boy. Then his fingers found his mouth, "Are you and mom ok?" Julie and Scott suddenly met eyes and rejoined hands and they both couldn't stop the tears from flowing down their faces. "Jeffrey, honey. I have always told you the truth about things whenever we talk right?" Julie began. "Yes." the boy said, touching the oxygen mask around his mother's face. Scott blinked and a fit of coughing interrupted mother and son. Then Mrs. Mathers spoke. "Well I'm going to tell you something now,...that is going to be very very hard for you to understand or even to think about. But,... I have to say it now while I still can." Jeffrey started to cry, instinctively sensing the worst. "Are you hurt very badly, mom?" "Yes, Jeffrey, I am. And so's Mr. Kincaid. And ...and..the doctor here can help only one person get better because we're so far away from the hospital." "...no..." murmured Jeffrey, clinging to Julie's neck. "Shut up, Mommy. Don't say that. I don't want you to." "And Mr. Kincaid and I have decided.... who ..stays behind." Next to them, Scott's head began to sink lower and lower as unconsciousness began to set in.. and he whispered over and over again. "I'm sorry, Julie.. I'm sorry............Julie...." Jeffrey's mouth gaped open in wordless grief when he heard Scott's faint admission and he began to wail and cry desperately. "NO.. make them save YYyoou, mom.. Please...Make them save--.." and he began to hold tight to Julie's shoulders, tangling his fingers into her damp hair. Julie felt bad jolts of pain but she managed to speak. "Shhh, Jeffrey. You have to go, so the doctors can start to work on Mr. Kincaid. I...just wanted to say goodbye. And to tell you how deeply I love you ..and Daddy." she weeped. "Noo, MOm..... no..!" Jeffrey wheezed, trying to bury his mother's words under the oxygen mask with his cheek and hands. At his cries the rescue personnel returned. And Johnny Gage was among them. No one had to ask what the outcome of the private decision had been. Quietly, crews swirled around Scott Kincaid and Dr. Brackett barked orders for more I.V.'s and a new one of whole blood of Scott's blood type. Julie said to Roy as he approached, "You take really good care of him...." she demanded, hot tears burning her cheeks. "Jeffrey.. I love you..." she whispered into her raging son's ear and then he was torn away from her grasp by the firemen. Julie lay back down in shock as a numbing darkness began to nibble at the corners of her awareness and she watched Jeffrey's struggling form under the paramedic's arm as if it were a silent slow motion movie. The doctors were ready to drape Scott's abdomen when Dixie noticed that Scott had Julie's hand once more in an unbreakable grip. "Hold it. Hold it.." she snapped and McCall leaned close to Scott's ear. "What is it, Scott?" "Help her instead. I........have no family...." and then he fell unconscious. Dixie's face fell under a flood of tears with high emotion and she shouted. "Dr. Brackett! Did you--?" "I heard." he said bruskly, already transferring positions to crouch over Julie Mathers while he threw on a surgical gown, mask and sterile gloves. "Everybody. We're gonna cut her free without waiting for the arc welder. Don't worry about spinal immobilization. This is life saving measures first. Get set for heavy bleeding and have hemostats standing by. I am almost one hundred percent certain that only one lobe of her liver is involved. There's no time to lose! " he snapped. Then he paused briefly and looked at Chet after studying Scott Kincaid's slack face with an unreadable expression. "Fireman Kelly, please stay with Mr. Kincaid after we move him out of the way." he ordered gently. "Have him brought out to a paramedic team. There's always a remote chance that somebody else, apart from us, can still save him." Julie Mathers didn't hear any of the last two minutes. Her eyes had closed and she drifted away into a deep coma under Dixie's hands. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roy and Johnny laid Jeffrey Mathers down onto the ground. DeSoto felt for his pulse. "He's fainted." the emotionally overcome paramedic said hoarsely. "Cover him up." said Gage, equally effected. "Dr. Brackett's going to need me in there. Joe ordered me to help him." "Go. I'll stay until the boy's father arrives.." DeSoto said protectively cradling Jeffrey's head while he monitored the boy's shallow breathing. ::A nightmare. I can't believe this is happening.:: Roy thought. But then the radio next to him crackled. ##HT 51 to Squad 51## "Squad 51." Roy acknowledged. It was Johnny and he said four simple words. ##They went with her.## Roy dropped his head into a grimy hand. "10-4." And he started breathing faster. His chest hurt in sympathetic pain, as the great emotional burden that he had been an unwilling witness to, suddenly lifted away at his partner's terse statement. The radio fell bonelessly from his hand. A few minutes later he began to gently stroke Jeffrey Mathers forehead to wake him gently, as his father would have done had he been there. Roy hastened the boy's recovery with a soft lullaby that only they could hear. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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