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| The Golden Horn |
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The Story Unfolds... Season One, Episode Six.. The Golden Horn Debut Launch: 15 March 2003. To See Main Character Page Gallery http://www.voyagerliveaction.com/rolespage.html ***************************** From : Jeff Seltun <finiterider@yahoo.com Subject : Morning Misery Date : : Sat Mar 22, 2003 10:02 pm Johnny Gage jolted in bed with a groan as the wakeup tones shattered his sleep, filling the bunkroom with its frequency tones. "L.A. testing with stations 127, 36, 110, 8 and 51." Hank Stanley rolled out from under his sheets to the bedside radio mounted near his head. "L.A., Station 51. You're clear, KMG 365." he mumbled and sniffed and coughed as he hung the mike back up on its spigot. |
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"Gage, Kelly tells me it's your turn to cook breakfast this morning." "Aw, Cap. We just got back." Gage said. "Besides, Chet never honors his bets anyway, so why should I? I'm gonna just ...catch a few winks so I....I..." and his voice trailed off as sleepiness made him drift again from where he slumped in tangled sheets on his stomach. A ballistic pillow nailed Gage on the back of the head. "Ow!" and Johnny shot up onto his butt glaring about him for the one whose bed was now pillowless. "Whoever threw that's dead meat.." he growled. " Get up! A deal's a deal." Chet groused. "That sounded like a definite Cap order to me." he countered. Then he peeped. "Right, Cap?" Hank just glared at Kelly and pointed. "Move it, Kelly. You may not be putting the chow on, but the coffee pot's calling out your name big time. I wanna smell coffee brewing in fifteen seconds or the hose tower's gonna be your second home for a week. 15, 14,...10" he accelerated, "9,.. 8 !!..." Chet muffled any further retort wisely and scrambled into boots and was gone before his sheets settled. From where he lay face down on his bed, Roy chuckled. "G*d, I love waking up in the morning here. Kinda puts the world in perspective...." "Oh, would you just shut up?" Johnny snapped, sitting up with his legs dangling over the bed, not yet having the mental faculty to succeed in getting into his pullover boots and trousers. Hank's stenorous voice boomed out. "As for you, Gage, there's a mop just aching for latrine duty if I don't see you making tracks to the stove in five.." The effect was miraculous. Johnny went from grumpy sleeper to rabbit quick in a pico. Roy blinked in surprise when he only saw the door swing following his partner's sudden departure. He quirked a grin. "Cap, some day you outta teach me that trick of yours that inspires such gut fearing reaction in the guys. Maybe then I can use it on Johnny whenever he gets outta line about some crazy scheme of his." "Sorry, that's a trade secret.." "Too bad." Roy studied his watch closely and nodded when the aroma of fresh coffee wafted into the bunkroom. "That's thirteen seconds, Cap. A record. Looks like Chet won't have hose tower duty today." "Fine. Marco, that'll be your morning assignment." "Hey! That's not fair.. I didn't do anything.." Lopez protested. "Precisely my point, Lopez. It's a Cap's duty to keep his men from getting too bored between runs, by handing out active and fulfilling job duties." Hank said with a smile rubbing pleased palms together. |
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"I'm thrilled.." Marco said sarcastically, barely a whisper, disguising his retort as a cough. "Or,..would you rather a little latrine time instead so you can stay out of the fierce summer sun..?" Marco's face flopped open in instant fear. "The tower's perfect, Cap. I could use a workout. At that last fire of ours, I only ran up fifty flights of steps. What's a few more?" "Good man. DeSoto, it's up to you and Stoker to arm wrestle duke it out to decide who gets the chrome or the can. I'm done making decisions until after lunch." And Cap strolled out of the bunk room. Stoker and Roy exchanged brief looks of surprise. Then they began eyeing each other up. Stoker cracked his knuckles with a feral grin. ----------------------------------------------------------- Roy wandered into the kitchen cradling his arm and shaking it out to work the kinks out of it. "What's wrong with you?" Johnny asked Roy, sliding a pan full of scrambled eggs onto pot holders in front of the six table settings he had laid out. "Nothing.." Mike Stoker entered the kitchen and quietly took his place at the kitchen table and sat with a significant cough, pleased as punch. Gage looked from Roy's self conscious face to Mike's smug one but wasn't in the least clued in. Mike piped up. "He lost." "Lost what?" Johnny asked. "Never mind.." DeSoto said defensively. Cap, sitting and biting into a cinnamon roll, grinned as all get out. Chet finally put two and two together. "Don't be dense, Gage. Stoker was just the better man in a wrestle, that's all." he smirked. "Well, well, well... Looks like the guy who never pulls toilet duty's finally been had." he teased. "You're kidding.." Johnny said, forgetting that he was pouring Roy's coffee. He caught himself before the spill got over the table's edge dangerously, and into his partner's lap. Roy's mute look said it all as he watched Johnny hastily intercept the scalding coffee with an agile towel. Gage began to laugh to beat the band as he sat also to wolf down breakfast. "How could ya lose, Roy? You must be a third bigger than Stoker is." "Who's been doing more CPR lately?" Roy bemoaned. Johnny gave a short nod, quite frank. "Stoker." and he laughed uproariously. Roy glared at him with his usual unblinking frown. Gage moused down under the scrutiny immediately. Sounds of aggressive eating filled the air with slurps and silverware chinks and china dings until breakfast was a thing of history. Then Cap leaned back and said. "First thing after all the chores are done.." and he tossed a slate full of unorganized run logs and fire calls with an echoing bang, onto the table. The packet clipped into place was nearly half an inch thick. All the gang's faces slacked open. "Uh, what's this, Cap?" Johnny finally asked. "What's it look like? They're our run sheets from last month. A new procedure's been drafted. Each company shift's now responsible for tidying up the log book, and making neat copies of each incident, in triplicate, for the final send to headquarters." Dead silence met Hank's ears. Then Kelly cleared his throat. "Uh, Cap. There must be some kinda mistake here. You see, we're firemen, not secretaries. Besides, doing all those would take us all hours, if not days to do. I'll just bet not one of us types better than twenty words a minute." |
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"Tough." came Cap's easy reply. "I can't help it if that's a secondary skill you men have chosen not to develop. It's a requirement in the captaincy. Work it out. You have three days to get this mess into some semblance of order." "But isn't that the Cap's duty to record into the official log book?" "Not anymore. For once, McConike's finally laid the groundwork for something I actually agree on.. It's about time the paperwork duties are shared as equally as the chores around here.." No one voiced the thought every man was thinking, about Cap never getting latrine or mop duty. Johnny slumped, pushing away his half empty plate with a sigh and he buried his face into a hand as he regarded the fat slate before him. Cap asked. "What's the matter, Johnny? Don't like your own cooking?" "All the sudden, I'm not very hungry." "Eat. Then type. And that's an order..." Hank said. "I got the dishes." he commented, getting up and clearing all the plates into a stack, one by one, except the meal in front of Johnny. "Then I'll be right with ya all, straightening out that g*d awful mess there." he said pointing to the pile of bundled run sheets. "I planned ahead and got five typewriters ordered from HQ." The doorbell rang. Cap lifted his head. "And that's most likely the courier delivering them right now. Stoker, go answer that." Mike moved. "Chop, chop the rest of you. The faster we clear the table, the faster we can get started.." Cap said. ------------------------------------------------ Mike Stoker opened the rear door from the yard and hastily got out of the way as a handtruck, laden with five heavy boxes, barreled into the station. "Oops, sorry, young fella. Sorry to be hurrying, but I got ten deliveries to make by noon." the UPS man said. He wheeled the station's new typewriters into the garage and unloaded them against the wall. Then he leaned on the door frame, dragged out a hanky and wiped his red face. "Man, what a scorcher today. Whooweee.." he gasped, enjoying the cool air of the bay. Then he swallowed. "Say, is there any chance I can bum a glass of water off ya? I drank a little too much soda today and I'm parched." "Let me go get you one.." Mike offered. "Hang on a minute." Then he took the man's slate pad, "I'll go take this to Cap to sign." "Perfect. I'll wait here." the older man sighed. "Have a seat.." Stoker offered, indicating a bench behind him. "Don't mind if I do.." Stoker went into the kitchen. He returned with a tall glass of ice water just in time to see the delivery man sagging down the wall. "Hey, DeSoto, Gage!! On the double!" He caught the flushed man as he fainted and lowered him to the floor just as a tremendous seizure gripped him. --------------------------- |
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***************************** From : "Roxy Dee" <laterrapincabesa@hotmail.com> Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] Whirlwind Help~~ Date : Sat, 29 Mar 2003 01:52:50 +0000 Roy and John looked up from where they were drying dishes with Cap. "Huh?" Johnny gasped. Everyone in the kitchen ran for the garage in haste. Gage took one look at the convulsing man and the hard time Mike was having keeping his airway open and he said said. "Cap! We gotta move... Marco! Get the gear.." Johnny and Roy fell onto their knees by Stoker as they both reached for the fallen man. "Stoker?" Roy asked while he felt the man's pulse. He only briefly looked at Mike for what he knew. "What happened here? Let's get him on his side. Easy.." The UPS delivery man's eyes were rolled up into his head and his hitched breathing sounded almost painful as he shook. "He said he was thirsty and very warm. When I got back with his water, I found him passing out just as you see him now. He's been seizing only for half a minute." Mike replied. Stoker kicked a typewriter box out of the way that was a little too near the man's head. Roy looked at Marco, who had first grabbed the resuscitator from the squad's side compartment. Stoker turned on a high flow of 02 through the demand valve's mask and began to use it to create some fuller breaths for the man in order to turn away his mild cyanotic color. John nodded after his primary assessment. "His airway's fine now. Roy, his carotids are much stronger than his radial pulses and he's more than just a little warm. This flush looks like sunburn." "Heat stroke?" Roy guessed as he loosened the man's clothing and belt for more inspiration room. He started to listen to how the man was breathing with a stethoscope. "That'd be my guess." John said frankly. "Mike, see if you can cushion his head, but don't interfere with or restrain him in any way." "Right." "And let's get him stripped down." Chet tossed Stoker a folded burn pack for him to use for a pillow and then he began opening a shock blanket immediately after. Kelly slid the defibrillator and biophone with a foot nearer to Roy and Johnny, while he unfolded the sheet as fast as he could. Cap crouched only briefly over the man to help Marco open the shaking man's shirt where he lay propped on his side, then he rose. "Marco, after you're through patching him in, grab some ice from the yard's soda cooler and hoof it back here with a load, would ya?" Johnny nodded vigorously in agreement from where he was taking a hasty BP on his patient, letting Roy keep the stethoscope, getting a systolic reading by guiding touch alone. "You got it.." Lopez said. He ran through the back door. On a thought, he opened the idling UPS truck's cab and switched off the running ignition and threw on the truck's emergency brake. As he hurried he heard another order from Cap float out of the shed. "And get out a portable smoke fan, we'll use it to start cooling him down. Also punch up both garage doors, the cross wind might help." |
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Marco snatched open the chest cooler that was humming outside against the back of the station nearest the hose tower and soccer kick guided a drying mop bucket close until it was handy to use as a way to transport the ice they so desperately needed for their stricken visitor. --------------------------------- Meanwhile, inside, Johnny drew out the defib paddles and took a quick reading while Roy checked and rechecked the leads connecting from the biophone to the EKG monitor. "He's showing sinus tach, Roy. With considerable physical artifact." The finding made Johnny grip the man's carotid again for quality. "Still viable though." He tossed the paddles aside back into the open case. He swept appraising eyes over their victim, who was now only in briefs. Only then did Cap move over to the radio station to heft up the acknowledgement microphone. "L.A., this is Station 51. We have a still alarm at our location. Respond an immediate ambulance, Code R." ##10-4, 51. Ambulance is responding. Driver reports his ETA as four minutes. Your time out, 8 : 06.## "Station 51, KMG 365, 10-4." and he sighed, returning to hover back over the working team of paramedics and firemen. The sinus tach came on the monitor in front of Cap, but in moments, it seemed, the man's heartbeat grew more coarse and wide peaked into a more chaotic tach. Roy snaked a hand to the man's neck pulse and kept it there while he phoned out. "Rampart, this is Squad 51. How do you read?" Dixie McCall replied when she heard the response buzzer sound above her head. Seconds later, she was pressing the call out toggle on the base station intercom.## Unit calling in, please repeat.## and she flipped on the wall recorder. "Rampart, this is rescue 5-1." ##Go ahead, 51. ## Dixie said getting set a chart note pad and pencil. She tapped on the window glass to get Dr. Morton's attention about the run. The young intern returned his reading chart to the holder and entered the room to listen to Roy's report as Dixie documented it in writing. "Rampart, we have a male, aged approximately 60-62 years of age. He is currently down with a witnessed seizure. Duration: Two and a half minutes. Rampart, he also appears grossly febrile and not at all diaphoretic. Cooling measures are in progress as well as assisted ventilations on 100 % O2." DeSoto said to the hospital staffers as he watched his partner show Marco and Chet where to place the chilling ice. Piles soon appeared around the twitching man's axilla area, and thickly around his head and neck, ankles, groin and wrists inside the shock sheet the others had wrapped around him. Roy cupped the phone's receiver onto his shoulder, muffling it. "Stoker, keep tabs on his carotid for me, will ya? I'm letting go. Ignore the monitor even though it's showing a beat. Trust only what you feel. He may go sour on us real fast." Stoker nodded, taking over his hold with a grip of his own. Roy was now free to write down the information he had gathered from his assessment. Dixie asked. ##51, what are the patient's vitals?## Gage was already biting open an IV of normal saline and he smacked a box of intravenous tubing against Chet's knee for him to open as well, in anticipation of its use. He barely waited for a pause in Roy's account when he added. "Roy, pulse is, 134 and weak. Respirations are 30 and shallow. Pupils are slightly dialated and sluggish. BP is... 104 by palpation. Still working on the temp." Roy parroted the vitals signs as he heard them, scratching his nose while he watched Stoker maintain good color on their patient. "30? And shallow?" he doubled checked. "Yeah.." Johnny confirmed. Roy nearly dropped the phone when the man's belly began to heave.. "Mike.. Watch it..! Watch it. He's starting to vomit.." Stoker pulled away the mask and supported the man's head on his arm while some emesis gushed from his lips. Gage tossed him a syringe bulb from the 02 apparatus case and some gauze 4 X 4's. "Here! See if you can clear him first with this before anyone goes running to get the suction. This way's faster." Cap bent to help Stoker hold the man's face firm despite each violent convulsion, while Mike worked to keep him from aspirating anything into his lungs. Chet asked. "Are we cooling him too fast..?" "No. He's not shivering yet." Johnny said tartly. "You and Marco, just keep doing what you're doing." he jogged his head animatedly at Chet and Lopez while they hand shovelled ice into the yellow bundle of plastic sheeting cocooning the man. Roy reported the event once he was convinced they were on top of it. He also told Rampart about the feed he had set up and about relaying his cardiac telemetry through to them on Lead Two. ##10-4, 51.## Morton replied.##Does your victim have a gag reflex?## considering his options on reducing the man's most serious complication. |
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Roy watched the man as he heaved a bit abdominally in response to Mike's evacuation attempts with the oral bulb whenever he reached in to sweep it over the man's tongue. "That's affirmative. But it doesn't look like he's bringing up much beyond the initial amount. It appears to be all liquid." Mike spoke up. "Roy, he did tell me that he drank too much pop." "Soda?" Roy asked. Stoker nodded as he moved faster to clear the man's mouth. "I'll just bet his blood glucose's screwed up, too, on top of his being drier than all get out." Gage mumbled. "Marco check those clothes over there for any sign of medical ID." "Rampart, our witness mentions that our victim spoke about consuming a lot of soft drinks prior to collapse." ##10-4.## Mike Morton sighed and leaned onto the counter meeting Dixie's eyes.##Do what it takes to regain good air exchange, 51. His pulse is accelerating.## he affirmed by looking at the monitor. Cap got a pulse count. "It's up. Rate's 160 now." he told Roy to confirm what Morton had found. Stoker finally got nothing but air into his bulb. "I got him. I got him.." And he quickly sent some vents in, timed with the man's own. The fluttering pulse he felt under his fingertips began to ease subtly and slowly at first, but soon thereafter, by more than twenty beats a minute. Morton spoke over the phone.##Good turn around. Did he aspirate, 51?## DeSoto shook his head as he listened to the man's breath sounds around the ice piled there, with his stethoscope. "That's negative, Rampart." Roy sighed in relief. Cap finished wiping the man's face clear with the dish towel that he remembered he had jammed into his pants pocket, in between Mike's 02 delivered vents. "Looks like we got lucky." Morton went on. ##All right, enough's enough. Let's get a handle on those uncontrolled convulsions. Start an IV, 51. A 500 cc bolus IV of Normal Saline and run it wide open. Administer 10 mg Diazepam IV Push. Monitor him carefully for dysrhythmias, 51, as it goes in. Titrate the diazepam only to seizure resolution level. He's too irritable cardiac wise for any more than that.## "An IV, Normal Saline, wide open. Diazepam IVP until seizure is counteracted. 10-4." "Man, I can't get a vein.. Chet.. kneel on his hand, will you? Hold this arm still as you can.." John grunted, holding his needle well away from Kelly and the convulsing man until he had good room to work. "Pump up that BP cuff again, too, while you're at it.." Chet did as he was told and everyone held their breaths while the blood pressure valve quietly snicked tight. It barely raised a shocky vein. But it was enough. Seconds later...."I got it.." Johnny grinned, when he saw his catheter's flashback. Gage snatched for the flowing end of the hanging IV that Kelly had hung from the squad's side mirror. He quickly connected the two together while he taped up the rest of the IV and swabbed down its medication's port for Roy to use. Roy slowly injected the global sedative until the man went limp and relaxed into a post seizure turpor. His patient's color paled and the sinus tach widened, turning a bit closer, into something else. Roy pulled the med needle out of the IV line. "That did it.." But he didn't smile. The EKG began to show anomalies. "Stoker. How's he doing?" Johnny asked. "Still got a carotid. It's easier to ventilate him now." "It should be.." Gage coughed. "We just knocked out most of his involuntary muscle abililty." he said taking another BP, this time with the stethoscope. Roy did not look away from the monitor. Marco looked up from his search of the man's belongings. "There's no sign of an ID, medical or otherwise. But I know his name's Marty Anders." At everyone's puzzled frowning, he said. "Oh, I read it from a name tag he had pinned to his jacket in the delivery truck. I shut off its engine when I went out to get the ice." Gage held up his thermometer he had taken R. "It's a hundred fo--... Hold it..." he froze, studying a suddenly off rhythm on the EKG screen. "He's in V-Tach!.......Mike?" "I can't feel a pulse anymore." At the same time, the radio burst into life. ## 51, defibrillate. 400 watt seconds.## Morton ordered. "10-4, starting CPR." Roy confirmed. "Marco.." he indicated while the others rolled the man onto his back, whose color had now washed into a bluish ghost of its prior shade. "Right." Lopez nodded and started vigorous chest compressions. Gage gelled the paddles and waited for the charger to build. "One. Two. Three... Four hundred watt seconds.. Clear!" Everyone lifted their hands off the man. Johnny delivered his first shock. The heart monitor indicator leaped but didn't convert, instead it fell into a course V-fib. "No conversion.." he announced. "Recharging.." he said, hitting the power up switch once more. Again, he defibrillated. To no avail. "Nothing..." Roy grunted. Marco and Stoker instantly continued their CPR. Roy picked up the phone. "Rampart, we've no recapture..Request permission to insert an esophageal airway.." he said, his voice tight with stress. ##Go ahead, 51. Then administer 1 mg 1/10,000 epinephrine IV and then defibrillate again.## Cap's head lifted when he heard the arriving ambulance approach on the boulevard through the open garage doors. He saw it pull into the station's driveway. He jogged over to them to show them where their victim was. Roy and Johnny worked for a very long two minutes securing the airway and switching to an oxygen supported ambu bag. The third countershock failed as well. The two ambulance attendants took over Lopez's compressions and Stoker's ventilations. Roy said, "Still nothing, doc.." Morton bit his lip. "Just what the h*ll's going on here? This is just an environmental injury...isn't it?" he mumbled. Dixie, overhearing, shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine." Morton slammed the response button down hard with a palm. ## 51, start a Lidocaine drip of 1.5 mg's and follow up with one amp sodium bicarb. Time we equalize his blood's acidity and give his system a reason to start working again. ## "10-4. One amp bicarb and a 1.5 mg Lidocaine drip." Roy called aloud for Johnny's benefit. The dark haired medic already had out the right things, guessing ahead of time, their need, and he handed Roy the large bicarb syringe after squirting some of it out to alleviate its trapped air. ##Then administer another milligram of epinephrine. IV Push. Continue CPR for two minutes then defibrillate once more.## "An additional mg 1/10,000 epinephrine IV and counter shock in two. 10-4, Rampart.." Roy repeated. |
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Johnny waited for Roy to administer the Lidocaine before he followed suit with his cap popped epinephrine. "Let's just hope the lidocaine does the trick. I really don't think he'll handle any procainamide well." "Let's hope so.." DeSoto grunted as he completed his infusions. CPR continued while they waited for the medication to start working. Then, after the fourth try using the defib paddles, a tentative cardiac rhythm bloomed on the monitor and soon Johnny felt a carotid weakly beating at the man's neck. "We got him back." he announced. Roy lifted the phone. "Rampart, we're showing a sinus rate of about 52 and we've regained a carotid pulse." Johnny fed him a new set of vitals after snatching the stethoscope from around Roy's neck. "BP's 102/58. Respirations are 14." He watched the ambulance attendant switch the ambu attachment for the station's second portable 02 tank that Stoker had wheeled up from the squad's backup. Roy relayed the news. ## I see it. Continue monitoring vitals and watch for signs of overcooling. Continue the 02 and transport as soon as possible. Call me back if his pulse rate doesn't climb back up to normal in transit.## A few minutes later, Johnny and Roy had the man geared up for the gurney and together they loaded the delivery man into the awaiting ambulance. Johnny went with the patient with the gear while Roy remained behind to follow in the squad. He got in the driver's seat and leaned out the window. "This is irony for you.. How many times have I ever went 10-6 to Rampart on a call out of the stationhouse?" "Twice, I think.." Chet said literally. "Once for that girl's father with his sudden MI and then the other time when that crazy family pulled up with the burning trailer with the trapped kid in the driveway." "Oh, yeah. Forgot about those two." DeSoto admitted. Cap sighed, backing away so Roy could pull out. "Let me know how he does. If he wakes up, tell him I'm calling his boss to come pick up the delivery truck." "That's if he wakes up while I'm with him.." Roy grinned. "He's pretty out of it with his meds and overall condition there, Cap." "Yeah, I know. But he just strikes me as the type who'll fuss over his vehicle, know what I mean?" "Yeah." And Roy was gone. Chet, Marco and Stoker looked at the papers and ice and water and plastic sheeting strewning the bay. "Man,.. looks like a tornado struck in here." Kelly quipped. "It did. A force of six. We're always like that on a medical call so don't act like such an amazed twit . Go close both main doors and then you guys clean up over there. I'll go move the typewriter boxes into the kitchen." Cap said. Soon, only a freshly mopped spot marked the place where a man had nearly died fifteen minutes before. |
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| The Golden Horn |
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