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| Page Nine |
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Through the brush, Chet called out again as Marco and he struggled to get nearer the area where they saw the little girl's remains."Roy.. we need to know what you know." Kelly said over the roar of water. "There are parents somewhere out there looking for this little girl. If you know something we don't, y--" They heard DeSoto sob a heart rending incomprehensible outburst, quickly followed by sudden violent retching. Kelly and Lopez heard the thud of something with weight, fall onto the dry reeds above the river, seconds later. Kelly and Lopez turned from the water, not understanding for a moment. They both were shocked when they jogged back the way they had come to see Roy curled up into a ball on the ground. He was on his side, getting sick and trying to hide the fact that his stomach battle had been lost in what seemed to Chet, a pitiful way. "Roy, pull yourself together man. It's ok. We'll just get her in a few when you're better and we'll just get the h*ll out of here.." Kelly said. Lopez said. "I don't think this is just a grossing out, Chet. I mean, this is ROY. He never lets things like this bother him. Something's really not right here." "You deal with it. I gotta let Cap know what's going on." Chet said defensively. His face was a mixture of worry, disgust and frustration. Kelly went to find some high ground to report to the engine crew. Marco went to Roy's side and pulled him away from the soiling ground. He helped Roy kneel upright and Lopez held him while he continued to empty his stomach. His heaves were so violent, that his chin strap loosened and DeSoto's helmet flopped forward over his eyes. Marco took off Roy's helmet and threw it some distance up the hill in frustration and anger over the second unexpected horror delivered to them yet again in as many days. He waited until Roy was through gagging, then he said. "Come on, Roy. Let's move away. We're too near the edge." Kelly pulled out his HT. "Cap. We've got a Code F. It's a ... it's a ...kid from the bus rescue. Roy recognized her right away." ##Would you 10-9 that, Kelly. A Code F from yesterday?## Cap queried. "That's affirmative, Cap. And she's retrievable." There was a long silence. ##All right. Listen. This is first. Our hiker informant's a diabetic and the stress of his calling us out here has set off a metabolic crisis. Have Roy come up here.## "Ah, Cap. That won't be possible." ##Kelly? What's the hold up?## "Just get down here, Cap. On the double." Kelly said and he flicked the walkie talkie's speaker off, his face fighting powerful emotions. |
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Marco had gotten Roy's collar loose. He saw that DeSoto was no longer getting ill in the place Marco had guided him to away from the river's wall. But things were far from improving. Roy lay, pale and in denial, on his side, sobbing uncontrollably. Lopez patted his shattered coworker on the shoulder. "It's ok. Just take it easy.We'll take it from here. Your nausea passing?" He got only a moaning half cry for a reply. Lopez moved Roy's head to his knees to keep the sharp grassy brambles from cutting his face. "I know it. Just let it pass. You don't have to do anything right now." Cap and Stoker came skidding through the undergrowth fully loaded with ropes, a metal grappling hook, and a small folded body bag between them. They halted in shock at the sight of Roy, curled fetal, going to pieces. Kelly and Marco didn't have to explain anything to them at all when Hank saw the little girl they had seen. His own face twisted in pain. Cap crouched by Roy and added his own comforting hand to DeSoto's shoulder. "Easy, pal. You don't have to do this at all. We'll handle it. Marco, stay with him for a moment. " And he rose back onto his feet. Cap swallowed. He motioned to Mike. "Stoker, get her down from there." His eyes never left the dead child's place in the partially submerged tree. "We're not losing her again." and he handed off all his gear to the engineer. "Kelly, go back up the hill and help Johnny any way you can. You're taking over for Roy." "R- Right.." and Chet bounded up the hill. "Roy, you get yourself ok.. You hear me.." he said as he disappeared. Chet stumbled once but then got to the highway a few seconds later. After a notification to L.A. for a morgue team and the D.A.'s office, Cap shooed Marco off to help Stoker recover the tiny pitiful body. Hank closed his eyes and made sure Roy didn't see their awkward retrieval using the hook either, by screening out DeSoto's sight of it with his captain's helmet. It could have been ten minutes or ten years later to Stanley when it was finally done. The morning sun was a little bit higher in the brilliant sky, a few minutes later. Hank began to speak quietly to his heart wounded friend, sharing a like story of when his own shell had finally cracked under strain in honor of a dead child's memory. It did little to lessen Roy's grief. He still shook, gasping like a fish, no longer able to voice sounds. Cap sighed compassionately and softly, he whispered. "Roy. We're all here for ya. It's ok. Just let it out." and he drew his senior crewman up into a hug. Stanley let him cry for a long time. Privately, Cap let down a shadow of his past grief . He allowed tears of his own to fill his chocolate eyes. Silently, unchecked, they fell onto his jacket, rolled off its hem, and into the L.A. river below. |
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---------------------------------------------- Gage looked up impatiently as Chet knelt where the hiker now lay. He was irritatedly biting the IV Dex bag covering off on the solution he had been ordered to give the downed hiker. "Here. Get this set up." he said thrusting the IV into Chet's hands. "Where'd you all go to? Took forever getting him to settle down. Fortunately, he's deep into diabetic crisis now and no longer seizing." Kelly was quiet. Johnny didn't even think to guess the reason why. He asked. "Where's Roy? We gotta get this man NPA intubated yesterday."And he began to take another hasty BP on their victim. "He's not coming." Chet said, stringing the IV tubing and stabbing its port valve lance into the bag he had set between his knees. "What do ya mean he's not coming?" Gage snapped. "We've got a major medical here. He oughta know any body we find's last priority." Johnny said, pulling the stethoscope out of his ears. Chet held Johnny's hand that was holding the IV needle still for a moment, to get his full attention. "Johnny, Roy cracked. Cap's down there now deciding whether or not to stretcher him outta there." "What?! Chet, you must be talking crazy..." "Wish I was, Johnny boy. I hope to g*d I was. Anything,.. but the bad scene I just witnessed down there." |
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Gage fought mentally with himself, warring over his care of the hiker and his own desire to whip out his HT to demand of Cap how Roy was doing. He attempted to console himself with trying to peer over the side of the steep grassy embankment. The next words out of his mouth were barely audible.. "Is he awake?" "What, ....this guy?" Chet asked, looking down, beginning to do a pain stimulus check. Gage gripped his hand and stopped him. "No, I'm talking about Roy.." "Oh. Yeah, he is. But he lost his breakfast,.. and maybe last night's dinner, too. Johnny, he's not even standing." "Gonna get shocky." Gage mumbled to himself, suddenly redirected. "Roy?" "No, our victim here. Chet, pay attention." Gage said angrily. "This next step's gonna be tricky. Now lube this NPA down with the K-Jelly. I've already measured this to be the right size airway. And get that positive pressure handy. His lack of glucose is gonna knock out his respirations something fierce." "Gage I don't know about this.." Chet said. "Maybe you'd better call in another sq-" Johnny grabbed Chet by his jacket lapels and snatched him close until he was only inches away from his face. "You wanted to know if I thought you were medic material? Medic trainees follow orders INSTANTLY from their senior trainers and they never EVER second guess a medical order. I ordered you to prepare that NPA tube. Even told you how to do it. So do it! Now!" and he let his overcoat go. "Geez, all right already. I'm just as worried about Roy as you are. No need to beat me up over it. You'll have ta tell me more on what to do here though. Been rocky ever since I've been ordered to take over to help ya in Roy's place." Gage glared at him and arrowed his spent IV needle into free flight, not caring that the bloody thing whistled by only a centimeter from Chet's ear as it clattered home into the drug box's waste needle catch bin. "You've got thirty seconds.. I'm not repeating myself." "Ah,, Ok.. ok.. which side..?" Chet said, positioning the end of the soft nasopharyngeal airway near the hiker's nasal passages. "Try the left side nare first. Don't force it." Chet nimbly got it into place, doing all the right moves and techniques, sending the airway down flat, along the palate as it should have been done. Johnny smiled, handing Chet the positive pressure mask. "See, you HAVE been watching us. You'll still have to keep his head back for a clear airway and be prepared to yank it out if he vomits." "That much I remember Gage. What now?" Chet said. "He's breathing fine." he said, letting the man pull his own oxygen off the mask. "What's his rate?" Gage said, adjusting the D5W flow into the man's veins. "Ten, and slowing." "You know to ventilate him if he slips below eight a minute?" "Yeah." "What's his color?" he said, drawing a blood vial for a glucose check, for Rampart. Chet peeled away the man's oddly sunburned lips until he saw his gums. "Pink. Look Johnny. I could go back down there now and see how Roy's doing for ya you know. You are in charge of me up here.." It was tempting but Johnny knew his responsibilities. "Nice try. But we're gonna have to trust the other guys' judgement on that. Roy's probably just reacting now because he didn't react yesterday. It's most likely no big deal." "You didn't see him, Gage.." Chet said in the tiniest of voices. It was full of fear. Johnny looked up, his attention full and frightened. |
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Cap heard a voice call out. It was Stoker's. "Ready to move, Cap." It must have been some minutes later, for when Hank blinked, he saw the black body bag nestled in a scoop stokes that Marco had retrieved from the engine. The bundle was already tied and rope tethered for a hill climb back up to the roadway. Roy, was now some feet away, dry eyed, sitting and hugging his knees to his chest, with his back to the body, staring out at the brightly sunlit flowing river bed below. "Stoker, you and Lopez go on ahead. Have Johnny go on alone in the ambulance with the hiker if you have to and tell Chet to take in the squad. Roy's coming with us." Hank told Mike. "But, you're giving us two, a minute or so alone. Get me only if Johnny needs another rescue squad to finish the transport, and when you're done picking up after yourselves. Tell the detectives whatever they need to know. I'm out of service for a bit. Understood?" "Right, Cap." and the dry crackle of the grass told Stanley that the grisly trip up had begun. Soon, even that soft rustling faded away. The ambulance came, then went, with the squad behind it. Soon, even those sounds fell into the distance too. Not long after, the mortuary wagon and an unmarked detective car pulled up, to take away the child's body and to learn the information necessary for the bus investigation from Marco and Stoker. |
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