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**************************************************** From: Katherine Bird <kathbird01@yahoo.co.uk> Date: Thu Sep 29, 2005 9:33 pm Subject: The Black, the White... and a whole lotta Red... "Dixie!" Gage called out as soon as Roy and he had spotted her through the frightened hospital visitors and the hurrying medical staff directing them. They headed for her. Brice, decided on a more practical approach. "Johnny, I'm going to go find a police officer for a report. We can't move around if it's not safe..." Johnny spun, high in adrenalin, and spoke up. "You do that. Let us know that aspect via HT. We'll go find out the medical needs end of it." Craig nodded and departed for the front entrance of the hospital and the receptionist, who would be the first person to notice the presence of any police officers who began a storm inside. Roy noticed the blood splattered on Dixie's navy colored nursing sweater. "Are many people getting injured by this shooter?" "Yeah, good question. Where is he?" Gage asked angrily, repositioning the air bottle and its dangling mask a little more tightly around his waist by the straps. "Fifth floor south, and not just one gunman, but two. And they know each other. Roy, there's only one shooting victim who fell out of a stairwell and a nurse concussed when she got in the way of someone leaving in a hurry." "Ok, we'll start sweeping for other injured in the stairwells once the police have cleared the way ahead for us." Johnny told her. He blinked when he noticed the bright orange vest that Dixie now wore that had Triage Commander stamped in black across her breast pocket and in bold print on the back. He radioed out to Incident Command. "Squad 51 to Battalion One. Head of triage reports only two casualties so far. She has a radio.." he said, giving her a spare from his jacket pocket. "My partners and I will give further details as soon as we know them. Our captain has our incident tags on his clipboard. We will be heading to the fifth floor, south wing when we are well under police protection.." he told him. ## Battalion One, Squad 51. 10-4. I'll have all pumpers and laddertrucks standing by. I'm sending in your captain to relay to us through you during your sweeps. Keep us fully advised on any possible developing fire situations or other potential life risks.## |
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"Squad 51, Battalion One. We will advise." Roy answered their district chief. Dixie grabbed the sleeve of his turnout. "No one's heard from Joe Early since all of this began. He was last seen in the south wing. Kel's gone up after him." "Stupid!" Johnny muttered. "And he's the one who taught the two of us about considering a scene's safety first." "Johnny..Joe's his best friend. And mine. Assign blame when this is all over. In the mean time, we've a h*ll of a lot of people needing guidance before they go panicking further. It's partially up to us to make sure they don't go hurting themselves trying to get out of here." Dixie changed her ribbing tone and said. "I've activated triage protocols hospital wide." she said, patting the kit sitting on the desk in front of her. "Using the system." "The chief's already authorized us to use ours.." Roy said. "Ahead of time. We knew to bring ours along the moment a large building full of people was implicated." A clatter of leather shoes on tiles ended the conversation. Six police officers with their guns drawn ran into the ER for the elevator lobby and the two stairwell hubs following Craig Brice, who was acting as their guide. Dixie recognized two officers. They came up to the desk. "We're your scouts, firemen. Stay behind us until we say the coast's clear." said the fair haired one firmly. Then he smiled. "Hi Dixie.." said Pete Malloy. "Who ticked off a patient this time? Dietary? Or the billing department?" he joked. Jim Reed, Pete's squad car partner, gave a quiet nod and started ordering the public away from the stairwell and elevator lobbies to give them room to enter. "Pete! I'll take two of these firemen, and you take the other pair." he said, carefully keeping his loaded gun pointed up at the ceiling. The paramedics looked around and saw that Cap was quickly jogging his way over to them from the crowded entryway. Malloy motioned Brice and Johnny to go with his solo search. "Our other four officers are going for the roof, west and east stairwells, and the basement level to see if we can either negotiate with these two characters or take them out." Dixie took a deep breath in sharply, but she knew that lethal force was in the picture. ::That's ever since Ned ended up with a bullet in his gut.:: "What are their names?" Reed asked Dixie, ready to commit anything to memory. "Philomena and Georgio Stephan." she said, checking a chart with fingers that were already starting to shake, not something she usually suffered from, no matter how hairy her department became during a work shift. Gage reached over and squeezed her hand. "It's ok. We'll get him down, and in one piece, too." he said, nodding at Malloy's hand gesture to begin following behind him for the trip up the stairs. "And that goes for Joe, too." he promised, heading up the stairwell after Pete but before Craig. Brice pulled the landing door shut behind them with a snick. |
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A second echo of the same sound repeated a few seconds later over the loud evacuation babble, when Officer Jim Reed, the junior most half of Adam-12's patrol team, took Roy and Captain Stanley with him, doing the same search casing, in the opposite stairwell. Dixie guessed that it would take them less than three minutes to reach Dr. Morton's level, even stealth checking around every corner with a muzzle of answering fire power pointing the way ahead first. Dixie jumped when the nursing student returned and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. "Here, Dixie. I thought you'd might like to clean up a little." said Karen giving her a small bowl half filled with warm water and a green bottle of Phisoderm and along with another surgical towel. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." "It's ok. Today's the kind of day that'll make anyone jumpy. Including me." "But you're so... experienced, Miss McCall.. I thought..." "Well, you thought wrong. I may be wearing these collar insignias but I'm still human and can still feel everything happening around me just as acutely as you can." Dixie told her, a little harshly. Then it was her turn to apologize. "Sorry right back. I don't need to vent just yet. The fact that I just did's freaking me out a little. How's Ned doing?" "Dr. Theilen says that the bullet missed the descending aorta and only lodged in a section of his large intestine without damaging the liver or bladder. He's earmarked for surgery and he's very stable. A surgical resident's monitoring him while we wait for an outcome in case he needs to be moved from three for someone more critical." said Karen. "Good girl. Now how about pouring us a round of coffee?" Dixie smiled, fingering the hand held radio that she had craftily turned to Squad 51's band. Know-how told her that she could always flip back to the main incident channel if a battalion chief wanted to speak with her by listening to the scanner that was still on behind her for their hail. Right now, she wanted nothing better than to be able to see through four hospital floors to the nightmare drama probably unfolding over all their heads. "Can we even think about drinking these during a time like this?" she said, pouring two cups from a well heated coffee pot. "Sure, why not?" Dixie asked. "I'm afraid this whole mess will be with us for a long while before it's finally over. It'll do our patients no good if we get overtired and exhausted for not eating or hydrating properly like we have to do anyway. Just think about it, if we get out of commission, then who'll be left to help all of them?" she asked, throwing a chin out at those moving by the desk for the exits. The very young student nurse, Karen, smiled nervously. "That makes a whole lot of sense, Dixie. I- I'm sorry I questioned you." "Go right on asking questions, Karen. After all, I'm still one of the senior preceptors for you, even though I'm now wearing this triage vest." "Speaking of that.. why aren't the top end fire chiefs in here inside the hospital, coordinating efforts to solve our alarm and evacuation problems?" she asked. Dixie sat down on her desk stool, dragging the radio, ivory and black phones a little closer to her. She invited Karen to take the one next to her from its storing place underneath the pharmaceutical cabinet. "Well, because in this case, a paramedic outranks any senior ranked fire chief wearing a white helmet. You see, when the first units arrive at a multi-casualty incident, they are certainly going to be overwhelmed. Just look around you." Dixie said casting a hand at the ambulance doors where a confusion of fire fighters, police officers and reporters, milled about. "There is a temptation to set up the management levels of the organization first, so the operational levels will have supervision when they are assigned. Like what you thought, on their current absence in the building. "If they wanted to do this, most organizations have to use personnel from the first or second wave of responding stations. This removes them from the triage / transportation / treatment provider role, creating a delay in getting patients to primary care. After 10 to 20 minutes, it would be a sad sight to see many rescuers in ICS vests, setting up their operations and no one attending to the victims. "Remember that it is not necessary to assign mid-management positions until the maximum span of control is exceeded. An incident commander like me in an ER triage role, can easily handle 5 to 7 direct reporting positions before an Operations Chief or medical group supervisor from upstairs or outside, is needed. Assigning your first arriving operational units to hands-on functions as much as possible will speed up your ability to triage, transport and treat your patients. That is why Johnny, Roy, Craig and only one fire captain, Hank, was sent inside to rendevous with us." The young nurse to be just frowned, biting her lip. |
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Dixie smiled and closed the young woman's hand around her untouched coffee cup. "Karen, if you think about the things that need to be done before you can transport a patient, it becomes clear where you need to assign your initial resources. Here's the most critical mantra of triage. Learn it, because Dr. Brackett will expect you to know this better than you know CPR... "Before you can send a patient to a hospital, you must have an ambulance available and get a destination from an area coordinator. " Before you can get a destination, you need to know how many of what category of patients are loaded in the ambulance. " Before you can identify what category a patient is in, they must be tagged and carried to the ambulance loading area. "Before they can be tagged, they must be triaged...." Karen's eyes got a little wider. "And no one is better trained to triage already,.. than a..." "...a paramedic." Dixie said with a little bow of her head in a knowing grin. "That's right. They're better than doctors. In that respect. They won't get tripped up on diagnoses when sorting out any sick or injured. They stick with just the basics on determining survivability and nothing more. Now let me tell you how our triage system works now. This is a new system our administrators just accepted from the fire department.. That is why those condition orange lights are flashing over all our work stations. Ready?" Karen nodded her head. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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Pete Malloy hit the top stair and dropped onto his stomach after turning the knob ajar on the stairway door above him. He glanced down to make sure that Brice and Johnny were well below him by two full landing turns, before he cracked the door open with his night stick. The door swung open with a creak onto a pitch black fifth floor to his great dismay and chagrin, absolutely nobody appeared to be around. Malloy squinted in the dimness, eyes casting around for the nurse's station, where the hospital operator had said that four staff members and one injured nurse were trapped behind. ************************************************************* From: Patti or Jeff or Cassidy <theaterhost@voyagerliveaction.com> Date: Fri Sep 30, 2005 9:46 pm Subject: Endgame.. The Los Angeles County police officer risked speaking softly. "Hey..." he stage whispered. "You behind the desk. Where are they?" He heard the sound of a woman's muffled moan and that made him duck his head even lower against the floor between the frame and the door. "He's down the north wing. We think by the surgical store closet." came back another whisper. Pete Malloy saw the glint of glasses in the dark reflecting the bright light of the stairwell. It was Dr. Morton. Pete put the safety back on his handgun, and belly crawled to the desk and then, he, too, took cover beneath its high edge. "You put the lights out?" "Yeah, figured we'd make less visible targets." "That was smart thinking." Another moan made Malloy look down and the policeman saw a penlight briefly turn on in someone's hand that illuminated the face of a dazed nurse. "How is she?" "She'll be okay. Hit her head when Stephan decided that he had had enough of his expensive hospital stay." Mike whispered, still cradling her head in his lap with a few fingers monitoring Carol Evan's neck pulse. "I don't know where his wife is. This surgical tech swears up and down that she hasn't left the room yet." The young man huddled next to the african american doctor nodded, vigorously. "One of our doctors may still be in there. No one's seen him since the first shots were fired." he fretted, keeping his voice low. Pete set his lips in a thin line, holstering his gun for the moment. "First things first. We should get this nurse and all of you, out of danger. Can we move her?" "Yeah, her back and neck weren't injured..." declared the tech, while Morton worked to soothe Carol into keeping quiet. Pete pulled his hand held radio off his belt and turned the volume way down. "744 to Squad 51. The coast's clear so far. Beeline only from the stairwell straight to the desk. Eat the floor coming over so you're not spotted. Tell your firefighters friends that we need some way to get an adult female who can't walk down the stairwell. She's breathing and semi-conscious. I'll watch your back while the two of you get this nurse and the other staff here to safety." Morton grinned when he recognized Gage's voice over the handy talkie. ##Already got that covered with a stokes. Here we come....## "Anyone else up here with us?" Malloy asked the frightened hospital workers. Morton shook his head. "They all got out except for our missing doctor." "Ok, we'll look for him next." Pete promised. Pete saw Brice briefly stand to unscrew the light bulb inside the stairwell on their level so that they could open the door without being exposed by back lighting. Then he saw Gage prop open the door with a jacket halligan. The two paramedics softly stomach dragged their bare stokes across the open space of the dim hallway between them, taking care not to rattle the straps inside the chicken wire mesh. They quickly got under the cover of the nurses' station and the eerie condition orange beacon flashing there and they drew their legs up protectively to their chins. Pete motioned ahead of them. "Wait to get them outta here until I give the high sign. I'm gonna make sure our friends out there don't get any more bright ideas about shooting anyone else." "How's Ned, the orderly?" Mike asked. "He's still alive last I heard." Malloy told Morton. "Ok, hold fast until you hear me tap my nightstick on the floor." Morton and the others nodded. Pete turned and spoke once more into his radio on the quietest volume. "744 to 2430.." ##Reed here.## "I'm making my move from the nurses' station, headed your way, on the north side of the wall along the bottom. Firemen behind me will be getting the desk nurse and medical staff outta here down the same stairwell I came up in. Then Brice and Gage are gonna take cover back behind the desk..." ##10-4. I'll cover you. Any sign of those other doctors or the two suspects?## asked Jim, Pete's partner. "No, 'fraid not..." Malloy sighed. "Here I come.." ##Go.. I see you now.## |
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Brice and Gage froze in place with their fire gloves on Carol to keep watch over her while Pete scrambled over to the cover of a tipped over gurney and then further down towards the south wing at the crossing intersection of the two fifth floor corridors. They held their breaths and Johnny tried to shush Evans in her half state with a hand over her mouth while they tried to keep an ear out for Malloy's sharp signal. From what seemed like an eternity later, came three taps and the flash of dull blue metal of Pete's shotgun as he redrew it and pointed it towards the deeper shadows of the south wing. "Ok..that's us. All right. Ready?...I got her shoulders, Craig..." whispered Johnny as he and Brice and Morton lifted Carol up and placed her into the stokes basket on the floor. Then they began the slow process of dragging her stretcher across the tiles, keeping on both of their stomachs. Fortunately, the waxed linoleum made it relatively easy for them. A minute later, and Carol was firmly in the hands of a series of firefighters in the stairwell, being passed down hand to hand as she was conducted to Emergency as fast as they could move her out of danger. Gage reluctantly let her go. Brice got his attention with a tap on the shoulder as the rest of the fifth floor staff passed by him. |
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"Be careful you two. Here." said Dr. Morton, shoving a small airways and emergency kit into the paramedics arms. "For when you find him.." Mike said about Joe Early. "And Kel's being stupid, too. He's somewhere up there trying to find Joe." "We know.." said Johnny unhappily. "Dixie told us. We'll find em. After all, we are experts on search and rescue, remember?" Gage whispered sarcastically. That only made Morton grin as he disappeared down the stairs. Then the doctor's face was all business as he once again got ready to focus on Carol Evans' well being and care. The false bravado Johnny put on for Morton's benefit washed away in a wave of nervousness that made him jittery. He ducked back down to the floor imitating Brice for their trip back to the nurses' station. "When I joined the department and said I wanted some excitement, I didn't mean this particular kind of 'fire' fighting." he complained to dump a little stress. "That's what the men in blue are for, Johnny. To run us some interference so we don't have to worry about it." Craig smiled back."...much." he added. "Officer Malloy wouldn't have told us to stay in a place that he felt wasn't safe. As long as we remain here, nothing'll happen to us." "We hope.." Gage mumbled. A flash of gold white light and the thunderous barrage of two fired shots in close quarters startled the firemen, who kissed the ground underneath the counter. The echoing violent whines died away into a frightening silence. Swallowing around his dry throat, Brice lifted his radio to his ear for word of an outcome. No voices came out of it. Johnny stayed Craig's hand when he wanted to speak aloud to the two officers on the band with them. Gage put a finger to his lips, listening to an area just ahead of the desk. A man in white, vivid enough to see, stumbled barefoot down the hall in front of them, trailing a torn I.V. line. It was Mr. Stephan! And the shadow Brice and Johnny could see coming from him, showed the outline of a small revolver clearly.. Johnny's breath whistled loudly in his throat as numbing near panic almost crippled him. But the two firefighters didn't move a muscle, instinctively locked into a freeze. Grunting in anger, Mr. Stephan staggered past the desk and down the stairwell propped open by Johnny's jacket tool. Brice didn't wait. He got on the radio. "He just went past us down our stairwell!" he whispered sharply. ##Understood. Reed's gonna follow! Hang tight. And get ready for the lights to come back on. We're gonna start evening the odds!## The whole floor re-illuminated in a hum of power, right down to the ringing telephones. Brice reached up over the counter, and yanked them, one by one off their receivers with fast tosses to re-silence them for the two policemen still deep in their hunt for the Stephans. Jim Reed ran by in a duck as he began his careful chase after Georgio. "It's safe up to Room 601. Let Malloy check out 602 before you search down the hall any farther than that first room!" The two paramedics nodded, still staring at the ceiling pointed gun in Reed's hands. Johnny managed a little bravery. "Were those shots yours or theirs?" "Theirs.." Jim grinned craftily. "We wouldn't have missed." And then he was gone, leaving the two paramedics alone and huddled on the floor in each other's arms. Slowly, Brice and Gage unfolded to begin searching for Brackett and Early within the area Reed told them to. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dixie was still doing a fine job keeping Karen, the student nurse, calm. "Managing a scene with multiple patients can be frustrating and difficult. There are just a few steps needed that will help you systematically triage and treat each patient. Now I'm sure you're familiar with the red tags, those suffering from life threatening conditions that might die if not treated as soon as possible. Well, there are two other colors, yellow/delayed, and green/minor..." Karen began to shift uncomfortably on her seat. Dixie immediately soothed her. "It is important to recognize that you are not abandoning patients by assigning them the Delayed or Minor category tags. Remember that they will be directed to the rescuers that have been assigned to handle those kinds of patients. They will also continually monitor all the yellows and the greens and re-assign them to the red/immediate category if they start to deteriorate, ok?" Karen nodded nervously. Dixie went on.. "Now, yellow is delayed, strictly for those patients whose respirations are under 30 per minute, with capillary refill under 2 seconds and able to follow simple commands. Now for the green tags. Remember that patients with minor injuries are still patients. Some of them may be frightened and in pain. Reassure them as much as you can that they will get help and transport as soon as the more severely injured patients have been transported first... Lastly,.. black tags are for the deceased.." Dixie shared. "Now.... For triage sorting..ask those who are not injured or who have only minor injuries to identify themselves. If they can,..tag those with minor injuries as minor/green..." Karen tried very hard not to fidget as the noise in the ward began to grow from some kind of new development down the hall.. Dixie drew back her attention gently.. "Go to your next victim.. and think.. respiration first. Determine if the patient is breathing. If yes, immediately check the respiration rate. "If there's none, reposition the patient. If he or she does not start breathing spontaneously, do not start CPR. Any patient not breathing after repositioning, you'll tag deceased/black. Move on to the next victim. Not starting CPR may be the hardest thing you must do at a multiple casualty scene. But if you perform CPR on one patient, many others may die for the sliver of a chance that your pulseless victim may have. It isn't worth the price to pay in stopping to help that kind of physical finding." Dixie told her. "Even with so many doctors and others around to help us figure things out?" the student nurse asked. "Even then. You can only run a code on a triage scene if you have the personnel to cover it and still do what needs to be done without pause." Dixie said. "But what if they have a neck injury.. or--" "You will have to position the airway without manually stabilizing the cervical spine. This is counter to what you have been taught and may result in worsening a cervical spine injury. But if you don't reposition the victim immediately, the person will die in the field. You won't have the personnel to carefully stabilize the C-spine and you can't afford to let other victims die while you take time to do it yourself. If the patient begins breathing spontaneously after repositioning, tag the person immediate/red and move on. If necessary, ask an uninjured victim to help maintain the open-airway position. So, to reiterate... if a person begins breathing after repositioning, tag immediate/red." Karen tried not to pay attention to the police officers suddenly rushing in from surrounding areas around their desk. She stared only at Dixie's face for a small measure of calm that she wasn't feeling herself. McCall was a rock. "Next victim.. If the victim is breathing when you approach, but has a respiratory rate of more than 30, tag immediate/red and move on. Don't take time to formally count the respirations. If the rate seems too fast, tag the victim red and go to the next person. So... a respiratory rate greater than thirty is a...." Karen parroted mechanically, trying not to panic outwardly at the commotion going on near them. "Red tag, immediate.." "Right... Good." Dixie said. "We're not in danger, Karen, so ignore all the fuss over there. It's not our concern right now. Triaging is. Let's continue... Umm, where was I? Oh, yes...perfusion. If you can feel a radial pulse, move on to the mental status assessment. "If you can't feel it, the blood pressure's at shock levels below 90 systolic. Tag the patient immediate/red. If you have an uninjured victim near you then, have them put direct pressure on any visible, serious bleeding and then move on to the next patient. In sum at this step: No radial pulse at the wrist means.... red tag/immediate. "Next, check for capillary refill by squeezing a nailbed. If capillary refill takes more than 2 seconds to return to normal, tag the patient immediate/red and have another put direct pressure on any visible, serious bleeding so you can move on to the next patient. Capillary refill that takes greater than 2 seconds to normalize is a red tag/immediate. But, If capillary refill is less than 2 seconds, move to getting a mental status.. "If the victim is unconscious or can't follow simple commands, tag them immediate/red and move on to the next victim. Now, you're probably wondering about these yellow tags, huh?" Dixie said, fingering those in her kit. |
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Karen nodded. Dixie completed her thought. "If the victim can follow simple commands, tag them yellow/delayed and move on to the next victim. And that's all there is to it.." she smiled. "That's all?" Karen gaped. "That's all. Triage isn't rocket science, it's one hundred percent common sense. And this new system of the fire department really works. Now we may not have to use it today, there's always hoping." Dixie said, her eyes getting a little wide with irony. "And how.." gushed Karen with stress. "Now that I know what to do, I hope not to have to." "Good girl. Drink your coffee.." Dixie told her. Karen gulped it down. "Ok, do you have any questions for me about this triaging system?" Before Karen could open her mouth, Carol was brought in via stokes and then there was no more time for talking. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They found Joe Early where he lay in 602 by line of sight but nobody couldn't approach him, for Mrs. Stephan was standing over him with a gun. Malloy was all cop, his nose barely sticking around the edge of the doorframe. He motioned Brice and Gage to get into the flanking rooms to open both connecting doors ajoined on opposite sides of Room 602 so that all three of them could see each other yet still be out of the line of fire from the very upset woman. "What's the problem Philomena? Your husband was receiving the best care possible for his cancer.." the cop asked. "You american peoples! All you care about is the money in your pockets! My husband is in pain! Not the kind that hurts him here.." she pointed to her stomach where Georgio's stitches were. "But the kind that hurts him here!" and she pointed to her temple, alarmingly, using the same gun she was brandishing. "And I don't think I can take much more either.." she weeped. Pure fury consumed her and she picked up a steel bedpan and hurled it randomly across the room. It clattered with a racket and bounced right in front of Craig Brice's hiding place in the side doorway. Johnny Gage ducked in sympathy on his side of the room in the mirroring alcove entryway as Craig caught the flying thing before it nailed him. "Easy, Philomena, take it easy! Now let's relax and think about this, shall we?" Pete asked her without showing himself once iota from around the door frame. "Acting hasty will only get more people hurt.." That acted like a pistol shot in Philomena and her mouth flopped clean open. "My Georgio hurt somebody?" she asked in her thick Greek accent. The gun in her hand fluttered from her temple, back down to at her side. Malloy used the distraction to motion the firefighters to take a better look at Joe who was still motionless on his back, lying partially underneath the crash cart, his face full of blood from a freely bleeding head wound and split lip. Gage cocked his head and was alarmed to find that the semi comatose doctor was gurgling. "Doc! Hey! Roll over!" he shouted, unable to stop himself. "Or you're gonna suffocate and choke to death on all the blood!" Philomena startled, whipping up her gun to point at the source of the sound. Malloy, just as fast, whirled into the main doorway from the hallway, pointing his own gun straight at her. "Hold it right there. I don't want to hurt you. That's just a friend wanting to help that man right over there.." Pete told her, throwing his eyes at the strangling Dr. Early. Philomena's hand never wavered. Neither did Malloy's. She didn't even seem to care that a gun, just as lethal as her own, was aimed right back at her chest in a line of kill shot. "What man?" she asked. She didn't seem able to comprehend that her husband's doctor was lying in a pool of blood at her feet. All she cared about was her husband. Malloy changed tactics and he left the two firemen paramedics to figure out Joe's urgent dilemma on their own. He had to worry about his own skin, first. "Where's Georgio, Phila? Can you tell me that? It wouldn't be right if he keeps on trying to hurt the people who are only trying to help him, would it?" Philomena tipped her head in high emotional distress."No, it wouldn't be right. But I have to protect him.. don't you see? I'm his wife." she sobbed. It was then the police officer and two paramedics realized that Philomena was deep in the early stages of a complete acute, nervous breakdown. |
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Johnny snapped his mind back to the present. ::Joe'll die if I don't do something fast..:: He continued to shout. "Joe! Roll over! You're bleeding real bad into your mouth. Can you hear me?! Joe?!" But Joe only choked, his breathing attempts growing weaker as he drown in blood. Then he stilled, turning blue. Thinking fast, Gage retreated back into 601 and fumbled with that room's crash cart, grabbing up a whole box of endotracheal tube guide wires. He ripped it open and began to twist them together. "I'm gonna hook his belt, Brice, to drag him over here! But I'm gonna need a distraction first." "What kind of distraction?" Craig asked him. "I don't know! Think of something. You always tell everybody indirectly how smart you are...so live up to it." Johnny grunted, groping cross the floor with his swifty improvised tether, still keeping under heavy cover away from Mrs. Stephan's line of sight. The hooked end of the wire flipped open Joe's white lab coat almost instantly, but complete missed snagging a belt loop. Groaning, Gage tried again while tuning out the desperate dialogue carrying on between Malloy and Philomena, still locked one on one beneath mutually pointing gun muzzles. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Captain Stanley felt alone in the crowd of e.r. folk. He cast about, only half listening to his HT when he caught word that Mr. Stephan was on his way down the west stairwell, still armed. And that, cast pure lead into his chest. "This has to stop. This has to stop now.." he mumbled. Not considering his own safety in his emotional turmoil, Cap snuck by the security guards and started jogging up that same stairwell to take matters into his own hands. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jim Reed was pure stealth on the stairs. He took the steps quietly, one by one, letting his gun's muzzle aim whereever his eyes were looking as he pursued Mr. Stephan down the landing. He didn't say a word, knowing that any noise he made might be rewarded with the snapping crack of a bullet sent his way. He didn't like going downwards in an active gun pursuit. He never did. Going in a downward direction was never good because balance wasn't preserved. Maybe it was because he was thinking so hard, but the next turn, brought him face to face with a charging madman in a patient gown. Jim Reed raised his gun and braced on the steps to fire at Mr. Stephan at point blank range. But he didn't pull the trigger. Not yet. He began to search for a reason for a need to shoot in those few precious seconds while he looked for the telltale glint of blue black metal Georgio's hand. |
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the third try, Johnny did it, snagging Joe's belt firmly with his improvised dragging wire. "Craig! I got him! Distract her while I move him over to me!" Brice, looked around desperately for some means but then his eyes alighted on the bedpan next to him. He picked it up. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Malloy told Philomena a simple thing. A lie. "Mrs. Stephan, your husband has given up to our officers." he told her, holding up the radio he carried in his other hand slowly. "I just heard him do it." said Pete, keeping his bead on the distraught woman. "What?" Philomena blinked. "No..." she started to fret, suddenly dropping her gun's muzzle away from her silver badged target. "That's impossible! We agreed that we would not do this thing until the doctors promised to help him using assistance from your government for all the bills. They... they are growing too much.." she wailed. From out in the hall, the sound of distant shots fired, drifted into the room. The effect on Philomena was dramatic. "Georgio?! Why are you killing people?! The war was over twenty five years ago..." she whispered in agony, dropping her eyes away from Reed while her chin lifted in an attempt to peer down the hallway. Brice reacted, and threw the bedpan at the code blue button over the patient rumpled bed. It activated and soon the hospital operator began her urgent page. ##Code blue. Code blue. Room 602. Code blue. Code blue. ## At the same moment, Gage pulled back on the wire, dragging Joe Early swiftly across the floor toward him. Startled at the sudden activity, Philomena whirled and fired blindly. Two bullets bounced off the floor in between Joe's shoes as he was dragged to safety. "Drop it!" roared Malloy, taking the safety off of his gun. With a sob, Philomena cast down her gun and fled out the open window onto the ledge outside the hospital. Malloy just as quickly ran over to the fallen gun, and disarmed it. He got on his radio. "744 to Battalion One. We've got a woman on the east side of the building on a window ledge. Possibly suicidal. The gun threat in room 602, is over." he told them. |
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##10-4, LAPD. Sending up a ladder and bucket team a.s.a.p.## Brice saw that the coast was clear and he ignored the drama unfolding outside the window. He got to Gage's side as fast as he could. "Johnny?" Gage had Joe Early flipped over onto his side, draining out a lot of free blood and saliva. "He's able to breathe.......now. Just gotta get some more of this out." he added more sarcastically. "What about Philomena?" "She's no longer our problem." Craig said as he and Johnny helped Early. They held his mouth open while he worked liquid free, mouthful by coughed mouthful as he began to wake up under their ministrations. Soon, the code blue team arrived from an emergency freight elevator into 602 to assist the relieved paramedics on managing Joe's recovery. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jim Reed's finger was just about to press on the trigger when a sudden blast of water from a fire hose suddenly pinned the crazed man against the wall. The completely surprised officer whirled to find a determined Captain Stanley standing next to an equally pissed off Dr. Brackett, helping him on the firehose nozzle. A huge smile filled the young officer's face when they finally turned the water off. Mr. Stephan dropped his gun and started clutching his side where the water had stung his surgical stitches and tore a few open. "Now's that's a novel way to clean up the picture." said Reed. |
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Kel started to laugh. So did Cap, until a spasm gripped him around his throat and chest. He bent over and fell against the wall, dropping the charged firehose. Dr. Brackett grabbed him. "Captain Stanley? What is it?" "My chest.." Hank hissed. "It's been hurting since last night.." "Put your arm over my shoulder. Let's get you downstairs and I'll take a look at you. Can you walk?" Dr. Brackett asked. He motioned for a firefighter to help him with Cap even as a whole slew of cops ran up past them to help Officer Reed cuff Mr. Stephan. "Yeah..yeah. I think so.. This is weird.." he gasped. "I'm healthy as an ox I tell you." "Maybe so. But if this is a new problem, I wanna know all about it. Let me run a few tests on you?" "Fine by me.. Oooo." Cap grimaced. Brackett caught more of the captain's weight. "Orderly! Get a gurney over here on the double!" he said as they exited the stairwell. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roy DeSoto had been the first firefighter on the ledge to handle Mrs. Stephan's situation. And he was still talking to her as she cried, holding onto the ledge's thin steel safety railing, the only barrier between herself and the five story fall to the ground. "Mrs. Stephan. Your husband is fine. I don't know what you thought earlier in the room, but..I- I just got word that he's been taken into safe custody by the police. He hasn't been killed like you say you think he has. No one else has been shot. Just the one orderly. And he's gonna be fine." "Georgio...?" she whispered. "My Georgio..." "He's ok. Please, d- don't do anything hasty. We all just wanna help ya." Roy said from the window,stalling, as he watched the bucket, still three stories below, rise slowly up towards them. Philomena made a face and suddenly saw down the front of her blouse, noticing the splatters of blood just then on her hands and sleeves. "What...what did I do?.. " she asked softly, trembling. "Did I hurt someone?" DeSoto carefully turned up his radio as he listened to Johnny and Brice give a care report to those down in the e.r. base station through the HT. He heard his partners mention the fact that Joe wasn't shot anywhere, only beaned from something that had inflicted blunt trauma. Johnny guessed over the airwaves that Joe had been knocked out with a patient's bedpan from what blood he had remembered seeing on the one Philomena had thrown. "Uhh,..not badly. Anger does sometimes get the best of people. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You're under a lot of stress right now and some of that could just be coming out in an odd way." DeSoto reasoned with a small smile. "It's really ok to be feeling the way you are now." But Philomena wasn't listening. "I... beat up..somebody?" she asked again, in growing horror. She had very good hearing and she had listened to every word coming from Johnny and Brice's HT transmission while they worked on Joe Early, inside. Without a word, Mrs. Stephan rose up from her crouch on the window ledge and leaped off the height before anyone could stop her. |
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Early and Captain Stanley lay on matching beds in the same treatment room. Roy was taking Hank's blood pressure. Kel bounced back and forth between his two patients, chattering worse than Dixie in a firm mother hen mode. Cap's EKG was on audible and his I.V. was T.K.O. "I'm seeing nothing out of the ordinary, captain." Kel concluded, pulling off his stethoscope. He began folding up the cardiac strip for Hank's patient chart. "You're absolutely fine. Most likely your symptoms are all just psychosomatic because you're holding in something that's bothering you, like the chaplain said you were doing." "Mind caused? Whew.. that's a relief.." sighed Cap on the table. "For a minute on those stairs, I thought I was a goner. Guess I'm just feeling old today." The hospital chaplain stood, acting his role as a CISM counselor for both Cap and Marco. And they were finally talking together freely. The man of the cloth continued his counsel and he chuckled. "I frequently run into the old 'dinosaurs,' who says, 'I don't need this, but I'll be here to see you kids through it.' Then, during debriefing, the dino'll bring up a car accident that happened 30 years ago, and he'll recall every detail. I can't stress enough the need to talk it all out, fellas." he says. "I don't care if you talk to your steering wheel, your dog, your partner or your spouse. Part of the whole macho image in emergency services is having this mindset about not taking your work home to the family, but our entire team tells people, 'When you've had a tough call, your kids know as soon your foot hits the door that something is different with Dad. They aren't sure what and don't understand all the ins and outs, but we always strongly encourage everyone to talk to their spouse and kids about the call. The more you talk about an event, the easier it is for you to park it in the right spot. It's having the attitude of, 'I gotta suck it in; I gotta keep it in my gut; I can't talk about it,' for fear of being a wimp or not 'one of the boys' that's self-defeating." said the chaplain. Dr. Brackett agreed with him. "I see emergency services folks having heart attacks at age 59 and cirrhosis at age 56," said Kel. "They're chewing up their bodies over 20 years of service, because they didn't go park stuff. Bottling things up had literally eaten away at them. So keep what the chaplain's telling you in mind. Every time you talk about an incident, it'll take a little more of the load off your shoulders." |
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"CISM is not a magical thing that cures all. But neither is it a stigma, boys. So use it. And use me. Now. Both the good doctor and I are after the same thing here. It's all about keeping healthy people like the both of you, healthy and strong." said the chaplain. "You see, the principle of all this is that sometimes decent folks like yourselves just need to get a little mental overhaul or two done to learn how to handle the emotions which can come barreling down on a truly bad call. Please, call me anytime you want to talk about one of those and I promise, I'll drop everything I'm doing and stop by the stationhouse or to your own home." and the chaplain handed Captain Stanley a small light blue business card. "O.k." promised Marco and Hank. Joe Early was thoughtful. "So, Johnny. The nurses are telling me that you signalled my potential code by throwing a bedpan at the code blue button on the wall?" he chuckled as a nurse cleaned up his face and a resident got a local ready to stitch up his lip. "I didn't think of that gem, doc. Brice did." Gage complained. Cap laughed. "And I thought I was the one acting a little odd with my reactions. I wouldn't call that a by the book protocol, Craig. What happened to your personal mantra of being letter perfect in all that you do on the job?" Brice just shrugged, finding himself at a loss for an answer. "There's being perfect and then there's being a genuine menace to society, Cap." sighed Roy DeSoto. "I don't think a flying bed pan'll count for too much in the long run." "Guess it won't." Cap agreed. "Not unless you're dying under another crash cart and we're being held at bay by gunpoint again." Gage quipped to Joe Early. "Then, it just might become another standard emergency medical hospital protocol if people begin to see how useful that little trick is." Dixie and her student nurse Karen, just rolled their eyes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was three days later, Gage and Brice were drying the dishes early in the morning in the kitchen, when the sound of an engine pulling up in the backyard, garnered their attention. "Shh, here they come.." Brice snickered. "I wonder how it went. Did Brackett and the others live up to their word?" "They must have." laughed Gage, as he peeked through the blinds at the angry expressions he was seeing on the rest of the gang as they hopped off the old refurbished engine in their dress uniforms. "Well, well, well. Looks like this joking stew is well seasoned and ready to eat." Brice smiled and handed Johnny another clean towel. Gil, filling in for Marco while he took a few days off to talk with the CISM counselors some more, asked. "What did you two do?" Gage, started smiling. "We didn't do anything. Dixie, Kel and Joe did all of it for us.." he said, without elaborating. Gil cracked Johnny in the butt with a wet towel for being evasive. Gage howled, rubbed a nether cheek, and then, finally, answered. "They took an empty box, put a couple of full soda cans in it to weigh it down and tied it to the back bumper of our old engine with some string. They then wrote on it with black marker "FREE KITTENS. just before the start of Dixie's parade event.." "They didn't." chuckled Gil. "They did." said Brice laughing even louder, his voice barely a squeak when it came out. Cap, once he got inside the station, made sure he glared good and hard at Craig and Johnny. But no one glared harder at them, than Chet Kelly. He said. "We left the station this morning and got pulled over by the fuzz about ten miles down the road I'll have you know. Clowns, Cap. The both of them!" "Well, what happened?" asked Gil, fighting to keep from smiling. Stoker told him. "The cop at first was furious, but then he saw Johnny and Brice's little joking stunt and couldn't stop laughing. "And we went through that whole d*mned parade trying to figure out why people kept pulling up beside us, yelling." Hank scowled. "Well, well well, Mr. Craig T. Brice. Guess we can rest on our laurels now." grinned Gage. "That prank of yours, has simply got to be the best joke I've ever had the pleasure to help sow." Johnny said with a lopsided smirk. "Congratulations, Craig. I think we pulled it off in grand style,..like true masters." and he started to laugh aloud to the point of tears. Brice had only one thing to say to that. "Phantom, read it and weep." he told Chet and the others, winking just his left eye..."...for I do believe that you all......have just been seriously ...had." FIN ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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