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| Page Eight |
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Chet made a face. Then he turned his attention back to Bellingham when the man's air-tank-is-empty whistle began to sound. He pulled off Bob's mask and replaced it with his own. "Brilliant Sherlock Holmes.. That's a brownie point for you. This one's his now, Stoker." he said, tapping the face plate he held pressed over Bob's nose and mouth around the jaw thrust he was maintaining on the mostly out paramedic. "Gimme yours so I can buddy breathe in peace and quiet ok? We'll trade off every two breaths like the usual. Do me a favor huh? Keep theorizing this crime scene to yourself. I'm so mad at that kid right now, I just might curse him with that hex Marco's mom once taught me that Lopez says always seems to work for her." he cocked his geared head in another thought. "Or I just might give the other Station Ten guys his description when we find them and let THEM deal out a little justice before the cops come." Smiling and rationing his breath, Stoker lifted his HT to report that a Station Ten man had been found alive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Brice! ... no.." Roy said firmly, grabbing Craig's arm. They had both just heard Mike Stoker's report on finding Bob Bellingham injured soon after the stunning shock of news announcing Engine Ten's demise. Now, the straight laced, usually bureaucratic eye glassed paramedic was anything but reserved. He almost shook free of DeSoto's hold on him ; the only thing which kept Brice from running off into the debris field to get to Bellingham's side. "Roy, Kelly and Stoker aren't paramedics. They don't know the first thing about secondarily surveying a patient! Getting that right is critical! " "True, but they DO know the primary one. You remember.. the one about the A B C's..?" Roy grinned. "Bob's in good enough hands until Squad 8 gets there. They did say they had breathing, a regular pulse and that Bob was reactive to pain. He'll get through just fine without you going barging in there and taking over.." he said necessarily sharp. "How would you feel if it was YOUR partner lying there as a victim?" Craig said, not caring how he sounded to the civilian volunteers milling about them. "I'm sure if the tables were turned and you were in MY shoes, that you'd try to expedite a rescue as quickly as possible yourself, just like what you're accusing me of doing right now. Listen to your radio DeSoto.. Hear all that chatter? That's the sound of three dozen other firefighters who feel exactly the same way I do right now. " |
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Roy led Craig out of the food tent by the elbow to stand near the squad. "Craig.. Craig.. " he interjected between Brice's long drawn out speech. "Craig.. I- I understand. But this is triage. We go where they tell us and not a moment before. I heard Battalion 12 say he was planning on sending us out. So all we have to do is sit tight and wait for the word go.. all right?" Right then came a harried rookie from the city in dusty yellow with an air bottle strapped on the wrong way. At his feet was Boot, barking loudly. "Hey, 51.." said the young rookie. "This your dog? Listen, you'd better take charge of him cause my captain's had it up to here with him grabbing all our pant legs for no good reason. He's really pissing the guys off. Broderick almost blasted him with the engine cannon to clear him outta our space..." "What?" Roy said, taking charge of Boot's collar. The ragged dog was whining and carrying on. And he was breathing oddly, like he was choking. The rookie just threw up his hands and walked away mumbling. "Just keep him away from us, Truck 226, and you'll have no problems. If he comes back and becomes the main course on the chow line, don't come looking for me..." Craig had already crouched down by Boot's side. "His name's Boot?" he asked Roy, grabbing the dog by the head and pulling his chin up to see the cause of Boot's physical distress. DeSoto nodded. Brice pulled a green ink pen out of Boot's mouth briefly before the dog fiercely retook possession of it, only to resume his whining and pacing before the two paramedics with even more urgency. "I don't know dogs, DeSoto. But he's obviously stressed, maybe because of all the fatalities around here." Roy also stooped and petted Boot's back to calm him but it didn't work. "He's really worked up about something. What was that you got out of his mouth?" Brice suffered a brief tug of war with Boot but finally yanked the ink pen out of the mutt's maw and he held it up before the leaping canine snatched it away again. "Just an ink pen.. how strange.. There's thousands of better kinds of sticks lying around. Why did he choose that to play with?" Craig wondered. Roy got a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach. "He doesn't play, and when he's onto something like this, it's because he's tracking someone." "What?" "Boot's done this before. When he first started hanging around the station, on our first call, he actually found a hiker's backpack along the roadside. Without him, we wouldn't've ever found the victim. He was eighty feet down a beach cliff following a fall..." Roy said absently. Boot suddenly pushed the pen into DeSoto's hand and then began to tug his pants leg in earnest, almost to the point of tipping him over. His whines and frantic barks continued even more loudly. |
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Craig said. "What now? We can't keep him in the squad. It's too hot.." Then he scratched his head. "I know, I'll tie him up to the running board with a tow line.." And he finished carrying out his idea. "Let him go.." Roy said, feeling something dreadful. The pen that he held up into the rising sunlight was full of blood stains. Craig shrugged and then cut the rope in two with his belt pocket knife. Boot took off towards Rampart like a shot, but only along a route that the squad could follow. DeSoto grew certain.. "He's onto someone who's in trouble, someone no one else knows about.. Get in. We'll follow him.." Brice said, "DeSoto, this is highly illog--" DeSoto slammed the driver's door after stepping into the squad and securing his helmet. "Maybe. But we have no reason to go anywhere else until we're formally authorized. Buckle up.." Soon, Roy pulled up in a clear spot alongside the outdoor cafeteria out of the way of the line of ambulances and supply tents and the morgue area. Boot hastily ran into the cafeteria's courtyard. "Oh, boy.." Roy said. "The doctors in there aren't gonna like that.." But Craig and he got out of the squad, complete with their air bottles on anyway, to find out where Boot was headed. Roy hesitantly stopped at the barrier sealed off entrance and waved a sweating doctor over to his side. The M.D. said, "What can I do for you, paramedic....." and he fished for a name, peering at Roy's sooty name plate. "DeSoto.. " Brice supplied when Roy wasn't fast enough. Roy exchanged looks with Craig in gratitude. "Doc, this will only take a second. uh,,, H-Have you seen a dog in here?" The blond haired man tossed his head over his left shoulder. "Oh, you mean that one?" Roy and Craig glanced over to a section of grass along the brick wall that bordered the eatery. A bloody collie lay stretched and silent in death near a garbage can. The doc went on. "She came in here about two hours ago looking for her owner most likely. Died of her injuries before she found anyone.." Roy blinked..."Uh,, this one's living... about two feet high, shaggy brown.." A commotion near the center of the triage section drew all of their eyes. Boot was scrambling on top of a table hastily stacked with emergency supplies and then, impossibly, he leaped up onto an adjacent umbrella, still stretched upright and shading patients lying beneath it. "Hey!!" snapped the doctor. "Get down! Now!" he yelled, fearing that Boot would slip off and land on the stokes victims underneath the umbrella. "Oh my G*d.." DeSoto blurted and he and Craig rushed forward to drag Boot off his precarious perch. As they were reaching, they saw where Boot was staring and barking....up the side of Rampart. "Johnny!!!!??" DeSoto cried out. |
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Brice's HT was in his hand in seconds and he was talking before Roy drew another breath. "L.A. , we have a man trapped outside the fourth floor above the triage area. Also a child. Both are unconscious and in heavy smoke.. Squad 51 is at scene.." Roy and Brice barely heard the Battalion Chiefs' reply nor the unit L.A. was dispatching to aid them. DeSoto started running for the doors of the hospital when he felt a sharp jolt as strong hands stopped him. "Roy,.. what did you just inform me about five minutes ago? I suggest strongly that we stay put." Brice said evenly. DeSoto let out a sigh of exasperation, but finally just joined Boot into staring up skyward, looking for signs of life in the two still forms dangling from a tied off fire hose, above him. The doctor couldn't tell what was louder, Boot's frantic barks or Roy DeSoto's urgent yells to the man that they had discovered in jeopardy. All he knew was that in a few minutes, he'd have two more victims on his roster to worry about. ------------------------------------------------------------------ |
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********************************************************* Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 12:29:43 -0800 (PST) From: "Sam Iam" <lafddispatcher@yahoo.com> Subject: Aftermath Brice tapped Roy DeSoto on the shoulder to get around the hindering sound dampening SCBA tank the paramedic had on. "DeSoto.. Gage's line, such that it is, looks secure. Let's go meet the bucket at the entrance and start clearing a path through the gawkers for the truck to get in here." he shouted. Roy, grabbing Boot and praising him ecstatically, nodded his masked head vigorously. "Ok. Sounds like a plan." he said, aiming a powerful flashlight a quick thinking intern had handed him from a supply cart, up into the smoke. "I'm not seeing cyanosis on either one of them. They've got to be breathing." he added. "Let's go." The two fully geared firefighters heard Battalion 12 organizing their new rescue priority around the one Kelly and Stoker were managing, in stereo, from their cranked volume handi talkies. The radio commands echoed eerily up the concrete flank of the hospital and echoed back down to them faintly over the sounds coming from the triage station around them. They were only slightly louder than the moans issuing from the walking wounded lined up by category along the cafeteria wall. Soon, ironically, Truck 226 pulled up and Roy and Brice were met with a familiar sight leaping off the rear bumper. It was the rookie who had "returned" Boot. "Hey, 51.. " the young curly haired man shouted. "Listen.. Sorry about earlier. I- I didn't know what your mutt was up to. I'll do everything I can to get your man down from there as fast as I can. Don't you worry. ." and he began to rapidly place the anchor plates down on the dusty asphalt for the truck's descending stabilizer legs. "Forget it, kid.." Roy grinned as best he could. "I'll be the first to admit that Boot DOES get annoying when he's on full bark and tug mode." Right then, Truck 226's captain jogged up. He noted the air tanks Brice and Roy were using and he frowned. "No one told me jet fumes were blowing downwind into the triage area.." "I think they were too busy to realize that, Cap." DeSoto said, throwing a hand at all the frantic doctors and nurses working on the rows of patients stretched out in between all the tipped over dining tables and umbrellas. "Changing all of that right now.." the gray haired captain promised. He toggled a talk button. "Truck 226 to Battalions 12 and 14. The wind's shifted southwards from the impact site towards the hospital and triage area. I recommend you set up a series of water curtains to divert the worst of the smoke and fumes away from all the patients inside and outside of Rampart. They're in a direct line of risk." ##10-4. Truck 226. ## came a dual reply. Dimly, Roy heard Engine 8 being dispatched to his scene with three other stations as well as his own. ::I'll just bet Bellingham's on his way here right now if they've been freed to respond to us.:: Slowly, 226's engineer lifted the arching white span of the bucket's arm upwards from his place inside of it. He nodded with satisfaction when he saw Brice peel off his gloves to get the two demand valves set up for Johnny and the girl. The rookie firefighter insisted on those going up with them. Soon, both the basket and the three firefighters in it, disappeared into the smoke. Unconsciously, Roy lifted his HT. "Squad 51 to HT 51. Radio check.." Craig immediately replied back and his distant figure suddenly reappeared in a hissing gust and Roy saw him lift an arm in an affirmation wave as he spoke. ##Loud and clear, 51. Stand by for info. We're almost there. I can see them.## There was a long pause, and Boot in Roy's arms sliced it wide open with an impatient frantic whine. "Yeah, I know how you feel, I hate waiting, too, boy." Then..... ##Squad 51. They're alive. Carotids on both..## came Brice's relieved voice. Roy let out the breath he had been holding and he joyfully shoved Boot into the squad before grabbing his gear out of the side compartments. He laid them on a yellow treatment tarp on a section of uncluttered grass. He knew he'd be treating long before the triage doctors even had a space for his two victims. He got on the biophone just as Engine 51 pulled in to begin setting up the water curtain to protect the triage area from the thickening chemical smoke. |
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Roy gave Captain Stanley an indication of who one of the victims was by tapping the number on his helmet. He immediately tempered that with a hasty thumbs up to Cap without speaking. DeSoto saw Hank visibly relax. Brackett replied to Roy's hail. ##Squad 51, Go ahead.## Drumming relieved gloved hands on the squad's hood, Stanley nodded at DeSoto in a thanks for the news and then he scrambled Kelly, Stoker, and Lopez into support operations. Roy did one double take as Bob Bellingham was carried in by Engine 8's crew on a long board. He wasn't even fitted with an airway underneath the oxygen mask. ::That's good.:: DeSoto thought. He saw the still and wounded paramedic placed on the grass in the line of victims classified as red tagged to await his turn for more aggressive treatment and further assessment. One of Station Eight's paramedics parked with him but soon automatically volunteered himself to monitor those victims in his same row without being told to do so by a doctor. Dutifully, the medic dragged Bellingham's gurney into the yellow triage tagged line when the burly man awoke and began to ask him legible questions. Roy sighed and replied to Dr. Brackett. "Rampart, we've a Code I and a little girl of nine from a previous rescue. Right now they're inaccessible but both of them should be freed in a few minutes. Please stand by." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
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In the Base Station, Kel's face furrowed when he heard about the child. "Is this the girl from the factory fire that Joe Early handled earlier?## he demanded to know without giving out too much information over the very public biocom channel he knew the fire chiefs and L.A. were both monitoring because of the declared disaster level emergency they were all facing. "10-4.." Roy answered. ##I'm getting her chart now..## Brackett affirmed and he turned to tap on the window for Betty, Dixie's stand-in. "Don't bother.." said a voice near his waist. Kel whirled to see an arm slinged Dixie McCall in a wheel chair, sitting next to him. She nonchalantly held Megan's patient slate out to him with her good hand. "I took the liberty of grabbing this on my way in here." "Dixie! Just what the h*ll are you doing out of bed?! Who let you loose?" Brackett boomed. "Kel, do you think I'm stupid enough to even hint at that person's name? Besides, I didn't break your orders. My I.V. finished up just fine and my pressure's holding so here I am. Gimme..." and she wriggled fingers for a note pad and pencil. Kel Brackett figured it out. "You sly little vixen. You turned your Ringers to wide open, to drain it faster, didn't you?" Dixie merely blinked straight faced at him, not admitting anything. Then she said. "Now how could I have done that? You had both my arms strapped down." Kel didn't even blink back. "Someone else did it then.." he started to smoulder. "Ease off, Kel." she pleaded with a half whine of weariness. "That firefighter and little Megan both need us right now so just can it, Kel. Shut up and let's get to work!" she said just as brusk, breathing hard. But then she smiled and the faintest hint of pink flushed rapidly into her cheeks. That convinced Kel as to the progress of her recovery so he gave her what she wanted sheepishly. "Glad you're back, Dix, we've missed you." "Unlikely.. Now, has Roy given you any data yet?" "Nope. Victims are still stuck high up." Kel said, checking the circulation in Dixie's fingers to see how his suturing was faring. "Any seepage?" "Nope.." Dixie said, trying not to wince at the exam. "You did your usual thorough job, Doctor Frankenstein. Very neat rows. Looks like I was stitched up by a sewing machine, instead of by you." Kel grin's split even further. "I aim to please.." he said, gently releasing her arm. "How did you know I'd need this?" he said, hefting the metal chart of Megan's. "Oh, Kel.. I tried to tell you and Morton both about Megan. That's the whole reason why I went up to the fourth floor after the plane hit. Let me fill you in. Johnny's the Code I, so get boned up. That orderly who attended me, with you earlier in the Treatment Room, told me more about how Gage and she were trapped in their room by fallen scaffolding. Only one back hall leads out of their bathroom and that was the one..." "... that leads behind the glass elevator shaft... hmmmm.." Dr. Brackett said thoughtfully. "There's also a supply room in there. Something must have happened to effect Johnny's reasoning ability or he'd still be in there holing up with Megan." Dixie had an answer for that, too. "It did. There's a block long water curtain going up on the crash side of the building. I remember seeing those only used to divert toxic smoke away from people back when I was still training paramedics on ride alongs." Brackett frowned, and toggled the switch. "Rampart to Squad 51." ##Go ahead, Rampart.## "Just learned about the bad air outside. What are your victims' consciousness levels?" ##Both are out, doc. Brice and another fireman's got them on positive pressure ventilations assisting their own inhalations. Both have unimpeded airways, adjunct supported. They say no signs of laryngospasm is evident . Oh, and the little girl's still got her I.V. line. It's intact. Brice said Johnny's signature's on it marking it as a new bag. Uhh,..it's I.V.#2..Timed forty five minutes ago..## "10-4. 51, I'm fore-authorizing you for 1 cc epinephrine, adult's, and .3 cc's peds if that condition develops in either victim. Continue to update me as your rescue progresses and notify me as soon as you have patient access. I'm assuming position as their attending M.D. I'll be faster than those assigned out by you in the triage area. If I'm needed by you and Brice, I'll be out there. Rampart out." He sighed and quickly read Megan's patient information with a practiced flipping of pages. Then he leaned against the counter with the recording machine and switched it off to await Roy's next transmission. He regarded Dixie thoughtfully as she jotted down the last of his orders to Squad 51. "Just how did you know beyond just his and your guessing, that Johnny and Megan had gotten into that hallway? " |
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"The orderly went down to the security office and had them aim a camera onto the floor to look for biosigns on the tiles. They found some blood, and an arrow of coloring pens, pointing in the direction of the elevator shaft." At Brackett's puzzled look, she elaborated. "This afternoon, I sort of...snuck up there to check on Johnny by taking over some of Megan's lab work and saw that they were arguing over custody of a green pen that she had on the table. I just put two and two together.." she said bowing her head fractionally. "I don't know whether to congratulate you or throttle you for leaving the ER twice, unannounced, during a crisis alert." Kel grimaced, waving Joe Early into the room to order him to take over as ER head while he went to rendevous with Roy. "I did pay the price, Kel. I argued with a window losing a battle with a crashing airplane." and she lifted her splinted arm in emphasis. Kel fell silent and brooding without anger. "Pain getting too much?" "Nope.." she trickled instantly. "This one isn't an ankle. I can take an arm over a foot any day of the week. That time bothered me. This time, it doesn't." she said evenly. "Besides, what's my color showing you?" Kel stroked her cheek in a brief show of affection. "That you're hungry. Go eat. I promise I'll call you the moment Roy calls back in. I'm clearing you for some oral intake. If you don't spill anything on my suture job, I'll forget you were ever AWOL." he said marking down his orders on the run sheet he pulled down from the file box next to the EKG monitor. "Deal, I'll be back with some coffee just for you." |
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"Good luck. All the pots are empty..." he grinned without looking up. "As of three hours ago." "No, they're not. I know all the hiding places. I'll do some acting as the poor hurt head nurse and beg some off the student squirrelers." The last part of her sentence was punctuated by the sound of a fast opening door onto the busy ER. Kel thought. ::Oh no she doesn't...:: "Hey!" Kel yelled after Dix, holding the glass door of the base station open so that he could see her retreating back. "You forgot your wheel chair.. And why don't you fess up and tell us doctors about those hiding places..?" "Nurses autonomy.. Live with it and accept that you're simply SOL, doctor." her voice floated sweetly back to him. "Thanks for lifting my chow restriction, I'm starving!" Kel launched the empty wheel chair out of the little transparent room and narrowly missed hitting Joe Early with it as he breezed in. Joe didn't bat an eye and deflected the wheeling obstacle away from his knees with a foot neatly agile. "Problem, Kel?" he asked picking up the orders Brackett had just finished dictating. "Head nurses and firefighters.. Who can live with them?" Kel said without elaborating further. "Us, Kel. Can't live without 'em. Remember that when you're old and gray like me." Dr. Early smiled mildly. "They're your bread and butter for the whole paramedic program which you created, by the way, doctor." he said cheerfully. "Don't remind me." Kel grumbled. "Better have someone get a forklift to pull Johnny Gage's chart from Records again. He went down while playing Batman on the side of the building." "What's he doing out there?" "He got a kid out of the only patient room endangered by that mess outside. His own. Smoke made him attempt his current idiotic stunt gone bad, and he's now hanging, out cold above triage instead of staying nice and safe in a supply room." "Terrific.. I'll get Respiratory Therapy ready. Want a couple of bronchoscopy trays set up for your jump bag? I assume you are giving me the entire ER's reins while you go play Doctor Do Right out in triage." "You guessed right." Right then, a candy striper trotted into the base station alcove with a mug of steaming coffee. She went right to Kel Brackett with it. "Compliments of Dixie, doctor." and she sailed right back out again. Joe melted. "Oh! That's real coffee! Where'd you manage to materialize that, Kel? I've been licking the dry coffee ring in MY mug for hours." he asked drooling. "Go see, Dix, Joe. She's the head of a secret society of illegal java poolers." "Huh?" Joe blinked. "Never mind. Just look for the sky blue splint and you'll spot her if you want to get some for yourself." "Splint?! She's hurt?" It was Joe's turn to get sharp. "Why didn't anybody inform me?" "There wasn't time. Morton and I handled her surgery ourselves." "Dixie was hurt enough for surgery?!" "MINOR surgery, Joe. So don't get your shorts in a knot. A brachial tear from glass. Easily repaired. Now shoo. Go be my leader. " "But.." "Dixie'll tell you about it all herself no doubt before I'm through with this call. And she'll probably yarn about Johnny here, a bit, too. " he said, tapping the biophone radio receiver and the run sheet he had scribbled the firefighter's name onto. "Oh, and did I tell you that the child he had with him is actually Megan Miller? I know you saw her this morning but I'll be seeing her now out in triage after you take over for me." Dr. Brackett wisely closed base station door on Early's scowling face as Roy's voice sounded in once more on hail, grinning like a banshee at the sight of his colleague absorbing the double whammy news shocks like a trooper. He took a deep breath to fortify himself and flipped the recorder back on. ##Go ahead, 51. I read you loud and clear.## Kel toggled, answering Roy's request for contact. |
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"Rampart, we've extricated both victims. We're getting both on EKGs on simultaneous telemetry. The adult male's via the defib paddles and the girl's through the Tetronix. He's tachycardic and I don't know why. He's got a weird V-Tach with a pulse." ##10-4, .....uh.. 51,....I know the identity of your Code I. Given his past surgical history, I'm ordering you to draw a red top for a cross match for a prelim RBC count. Then start a 500 cc D5W I.V. on him but keep it TKO until we've determined the cause for his arrythmia. I'll be right out there in three minutes after you send me those strips.## "10-4. Transmitting both now on Lead Two.." ##Link established..## Kel confirmed. He was still studying the EKGs when Joe showed up and parked Kel's favorite jump bag into the wheel chair still partially blocking the way into the receiving alcove. Joe paused long enough to look at Megan's strip before he darted off to run the ER department in Kel's stead. Brackett abandoned his post and hurried past the security checkpoint and out into the cafeteria commons. He pushed the wheel chair full of gear along with him and also a spare O2 upright apparatus that he found unclaimed against a wall. It was still full with ample suctioning tubes and a cleverly added tracheotomy kit around its regulator. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Roy DeSoto didn't even reprimand Brice about where he placed Johnny and Megans' mutual stokes. They were lined up in the red row adjacent to where Bob Bellingham was lying in the yellow one. ::That's bending the rules a bit but if the situations were reversed, I'd be doing exactly the same thing by trying to get close. He's gotta know how his partner's doing.:: he admitted mentally. DeSoto lifted the paddles away from Johnny's ribcage, his strip reading send now complete. Brice had already assessed Megan and found her the more stable of their two patients. Now, Craig was sweeping down Gage from his head on downwards, pausing only long enough to get in a fast pupillary check. Roy decided to speed up finding out what was wrong with his partner by beginning palpation of his abdomen. His gloves were just about pelvis level when Craig shouted. "Freeze, DeSoto. That lump in his pocket may be a drug needle. His pupils are constricted and that with his odd tachycardia might spell atropine. He's smelling like anesthetic similar to a surgery store room." How Brice smelled that over all the acrid chemical smoke leaking off Gage's blue jeans, Roy couldn't even begin to guess at. He just chalked it off as another quirky Brice talent. "Johnny, self treated himself for sure?" Roy asked aloud. Roy checked carefully in the suspicious pocket and he blinked when he indeed, found a .3 mg syringe packet full of atropine. Its needle was lacking a cover. Brice had just saved him from a nasty, unpleasant injection and needle stick. "Yeah.. It's almost guaranteed. His blood pressure trend confirms it. Up there, we got not even orthostatic changes happening while we were securing him for lowering. B.P.'s still unmoving and rock solid at 92/58." he said, taking the stethoscope out of his ears. "That was very smart of Gage to use atropine. There was enough cyanide in that smoke up there to choke a horse. Our jacket indicators changed color right away." Roy didn't miss Brice's quick glance towards his partner lying so close and yet so far away in the next row of victims. He got up and knelt so that he was in between Megan and Gage's stokes. Then DeSoto said, "Go, Brice." "What?" Brice stammered, still adjusting the I.V. on Gage while his other hand stuffed it under his shoulder. "Go visit Bob. I won't tell. I'll just give you a heads up when I eyeball Brackett coming our way." DeSoto offered. "Thanks, DeSoto." Brice said uncomfortable about breaking a rule. But that didn't stop him from scooting over to Bob and donning a new pair of gloves so that he could do a once over on Bellingham himself under the eye of the paramedic attending Bellingham. Roy saw Brice take Bob's hand into his own as he spoke quietly to him, in tearful relief. |
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