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The Story Unfolds... Season Six, Episode Forty One.. §§ Attrition §§ Debut Launch: January 1st, 2007. ************************************************** From: "Roxy Dee" <laterrapincabesa@yahoo.com> Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:41:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: That Certain "Flare"~~ "Man, this is the best idea you've had all day." said Johnny, letting loose a sigh of pure displaced aggression as he inhaled his double decker triple pickle cheeseburger. "Huh. If my idea of eating now's the only one you've liked today, we're in for some very serious trouble." Roy said sucking on his straw stabbed soda angrily in reply. "I don't figure." Johnny frowned. "We haven't had a run all morning. We've...just been.. tooling around, waiting for something exciting to happen." Roy insisted. "Don't we always?" Johnny asked sarcastically, gesturing the obvious with a nod at the still turned on HT sitting at the ready in front of them on top of their paint peeling, bleached out picnic table. Roy rolled his eyes and let loose a longish complaint. DeSoto took a deep breath. "All we have on the agenda for today, barring any unexpected emergency calls, is one school tour, the yearly vehicle maintenance checks on the squad and engine, and a date with Dr. Brackett at his come one, come all semi-annual paramedic to doctor brainstorming meeting at Rampart. So why are you bristling every spine at me and the rest of the guys today? You've made us all feel like it's suddenly the end of the world today." His focus of concern was one that Johnny had already dealt with mentally several hours ago. "So,.." mumbled Gage with hungrily chewing, overstuffed burger cheeks. "You just made it sound like a little assigned P.R. sidework's suddenly the purest torture. I thought you liked your job." he said, eyeing up his partner a little askance. "I could ask the same thing of you, pal. My ear's are still blistering from the last time you started venting out your lips. You've been contradicting anything and everything I've tried to bring up into friendly conversation ever since we rolled out of bed for roll call at five a.m... " DeSoto told him, brandishing a steaming french fry. "....LAST Thursday." he glared. "I have not." frowned Johnny, defending himself. "See? There you go again!" Roy snorted in frustration. "O.K., come on, let's go. If we're going to enjoy any of the time that's left during our new unofficial lunch hour, it's gonna be sooner rather than later." "Wait a minute. Where are we going?" Johnny asked, scooping up his food and two pop cups as he hastily kept up with his partner's fast retreat back to the rescue squad. He already had their full set of keys out. "I think I finally figured out the one place that I can take ya that'll put that smile, that I can only dimly recall appearing on your face once for a brief second since the beginning of summer, back where it belongs." Roy said, no nonsense while he started the ignition sharply. "Now put your helmet on so I can leave." Johnny glared at him. "Geesh, all right already. I'm set." he said, abandoning his still steaming meal into its paper bag in between his shoes with one hand while he shoved his helmet on with the other. "Thank you." Roy groused, as he took off from the fast food stand's emergency vehicle parking space with a squeal that rubbed the curb. Whining, Henry the dog awoke and lifted his head from the seat that stretched between the paramedics when Roy's irritated, lurchy driving caused the early vestiges of car sickness to begin rising in the pit of his stomach. "Sorry, boy." apologized DeSoto, reaching a hand over to Henry's head to scratch it affectionately. "I guess I must be having a bad day because someone else near me seems to be having one, too." "Speak for yourself." Gage said with a sour face. "I thought I already WAS." Roy shot right back without taking his eyes off the road. |
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The two paramedics sat in stony silence for a whole five minutes. Only once did Roy "cheat" and flick on the squad's reds to scatter a pack of slow drivers who seemed not to be noticing the green light hanging in front of their noses. Soon, DeSoto took a right turn, heading into sunlight. "Is this it?!" Johnny demanded with a snarl, jerking his thumb out the passenger side window at something very large in front of them. Roy sneezed when the tang of sea salt finally did a number on his sinuses. "Yeah." he replied tersely. "I hope you're satisfied. Because it's my absolute last desperate ditch effort trying to be nice to ya, for the rest of the shift." "Well, far out." Johnny suddenly beamed, wide eyed and happy. "I had no idea you had THIS up your sleeve." "Had what up my sleeve?" |
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Gage looked at Roy as if DeSoto was having a sudden stroke. "A lunch trip bringing Henry to the ocean. You did remember that Stephanie's on duty the same schedule as us, right?" "Who's Stephanie?!" Roy roared, doubly puzzled by Johnny's abruptly changed mood and line of thought. Roy's pot was definitely simmering over the brim. And then some. "My current "chick" as Chet would put it if he was here." Johnny sighed, happily leaning an elbow out the open window frame. He turned into the sharpish hot breeze ruffling his hair as he sniffed the wonderfully cooling humid air that just was beginning to blow into the squad. Roy's mouth flopped open. "Oh." he said, simply. Then he started gaping as he tried to put two and two together. "Is she a firefighter or something?" he finally asked, running the locations of the county's sister stations that he knew were along their current route through his head. "No." Gage said, adding nothing more. He just went on smiling stupidly. DeSoto made a noise of disgust when he realized that Johnny was in love. "Oh, so that explains it. You're suffering from some kind of separation anxiety being away from her." he diagnosed. "I am not." Johnny frowned indignantly at Roy. "Sure you are. I've seen you this way a couple of times before." "With who?" Gage denied. "With Valerie, the kids-from-h*ll mom we met when she got hit by a car right in front of us for one......" he started to tick off on a couple of fingers. "Oh, I'm over her completely, Roy. For Pete's sake, she's more suited for.. for.. Craig Brice than me, if you ask me.." Gage frowned, pausing at his sudden double pronoun delivery. Both men sucked in bated breaths, thinking about it. Then both just as suddenly shook their heads in dismissal and pushed it away. "Pull over right there in that parking lot. I think I see her." Johnny said excitedly. He pulled his helmet off. "Hey, Stephanie!" he called out, sticking an eager head through the squad's side window. He started to wave. Roy peered over their dashboard at the scene in front of them and screwed up his eyebrows in confusion. He noticed nothing but a pair of sunbathing moms watching a toddler of someone's frolicking in the shallows on the beach. Gage called out again, earning an irritated over-the-shoulder glance from both the women wearing bikinis. "Pervert.." one of them hissed. Then the two of them turned back around and they began ignoring the rescue squad parked directly behind them on the concrete causeway edging the beach. Johnny was oblivious. |
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Coughing absently, Roy stopped trying to figure it out. He simply opened his driver's door and watched as Henry slipped off his lap to land with a soft plish onto the sandy beach that was slowly heating underneath them. "There you go, Henry. Have fun. You got five minutes. We'll hit the horn if we get a run." he promised. "No, Henry! Not that way, ya stupid mutt. She's over there.." Johnny called out to their station dog. Henry ignored him, plopping down under a salted piece of driftwood. Already, his tongue was lolling out and panting from the heat of the day. Gage made a noise of disbelief. "And Cap says he's the best for interacting with all the school kids? I'm beginning to wonder." "Tell you what. Next time I have to make a choice for community ed detail, I'll go recruit Boot and Bonnie. They'll be a good match for you. All three of ya are disgustingly shaggy." DeSoto snapped. "Hmph.." Johnny, said, only half paying attention to Roy. His eyes were focused not on all the bikinis flocking around them on the beach, but towards a lone manned lifeguard tower. "Ah, ha. I knew it. This one's hers." he celebrated. "Hey Steph!" he finally improvised using the squad's mini megaphone he grabbed out from the glove compartment. "You got a minute?" he boomed out into the air. To Roy's amazement, the yellow L.A. County Beaches Rescue Truck idling in the sun started into motion towards them from where it was parked with buried tires in the sand at the base of the light blue painted wooden life guard tower. "You rang?" said an attractive lifeguard with long, glowing brown hair as she pulled up next to Squad 51. "Why, hello Johnny. This is quite a surprise. Did you come here to be nice to me?" she smiled sweetly. |
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"Or gloat..?!" she snapped, her face suddenly shifting into an angry coldness. "Whaa - huh?" Johnny choked, stopping his pursing lips stretch out his window trying to kiss her. The woman in the red L.A. county swim suit and patch let loose. "I found out about that bet you have running between Captain Thorpe and your own Chief McConnikee. I can't believe you, you pathetic hose jockey. What kind of paramedic are you who bets which agency FAILS to pull the most victims out of trouble in a month? That's- that's- that's sick, MISTER Gage, even for you." she glared, leaning back into her driver's seat."For your own personal information, we saved seventy nine people last week. Top THAT." she glared. "And that was fighting strong rip tide currents, too. Not simply moving through thin air over land with a weeny trickling little stream of water squirting out a hose in front of you in defense against the elements. This is one bet, Johnathan Roderick Gage, that you are going to LOSE. Goodbye forever." she scintillated, falsely sweet, spinning her tires in the beach sand. Stephanie Holden, the Baywatch Lifeguard, indignantly returned her truck to the foot of her nearby watch tower. She waved a red orange rescue can at her partner still sitting in a sea facing director's chair to show him all was well with them despite the visiting non-code-R pair newly arrived from the fire department. Johnny's face continued to gape like a fish. Then Gage began to steam out both his ears around the edges. "Chet... I'm gonna kill him..." he rumbled ominously. |
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"Looks like we're not the only ones with the same brilliant take-a-picnic-to-the-beach idea." DeSoto said into the heating stillness inside the cab. "Look right over there." said Roy, pointing down the beach to the north."Guess you're not gonna be the only one babe watching during lunch today, Johnny." A red Gran Torino with a white stripe was parked askew on top of a mat of drying kelp in the sand off the parking lot. Its two blond and brunette haired detectives had their windshield angled so that it had a bird's eye view of both the bikini moms and the lifeguard tower's front. Opening his mouth widely, Roy began to laugh until the tears ran down his face in sheer rivulets. |
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roy felt a whole lot better. He was getting into teaching their school kids all about fire prevention and safety. He also liked throwing in a healthy dose of first aid training, too. There were plenty of skills that children their age could handle very easily. Cold water for burns... The heimlich maneuver for choking... Mouth to mouth for heart attacks and drowning... ::Good old Henry here's a great ambassador.:: Roy thought. ::I don't know how we ever managed these demonstrations before without having a station's dog for focusing their interest.:: he wondered. Johnny was quiet, taking the physical demo part of things as he let Roy do all the talking in front of their class. Gage was lighting a garbage can on fire by rote, when it happened... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
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************************************************** From: "Cory Anda" <andacory@hotmail.com> Date: Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:00 am Subject: Every Second Counts.. A little boy's voice piped up. "Say, Mr. Fireman?" "Yeah?" Gage asked, standing ready with a fire extinguisher for Roy's next rehearsed segment. "Why do so many firefighters show up for a medical emergency?" he asked intelligently. Henry began barking at the garbage fire from where he was sitting under a pile of girls' hands on the other side of the library classroom. Johnny's eyes never left the trash can as Roy's voice droned on about what would happen next in their demo. A piece of flaming char rose up out of the wire basket and drifted up on heat currents only to land on the carpeting at Gage's feet. He began to stamp on it to put it out before the rug could catch on fire. "Uh, Roy? I think it's about time.." he stage whispered. "This is getting kinda hot here." he hinted sotto voce'. Roy wasn't paying attention. He was displaying a hose nozzle and lever to the front row, all of whom were boys, while he delivered the how-to-put-out-a-fire speech. |
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Another large apple sized ember floated up from the flames, this time landing on Johnny's back to the horror of the school kids. "Ow.. Roy.. I think I need your help here..." he said, whirling around in a circle, first in one direction and then in another, trying to knock the cinder off his uniform shirt and down into shoe range. The school kids began to laugh at his antics. "Hey, Roy. Pay attention! I'm burning up!" "Say mister. Why don't you stop, drop and roll?" asked a nerdy little girl wearing tape repaired glasses that were broken by the nose. The kids chortled when Johnny ignored her. Gage was beginning to panic when the scent of cotton scorching started rising up from between his shoulder blades. Johnny's dancing only grew more desperate, and soon it became incredibly funny to all the children and the one fire dog who were watching in rivetted fascination. "Ouch! God D-- uh, I mean Gosh darn it.. RoyYYY? Code red! Code--" "Whaa?" DeSoto said, looking up for the first time from his captivated audience, still in a half grin. "Ohmyg*d. Hold still." he choked in surprise. Snatching up a fire tarp from their demonstration table, he spun the blanket like a fisherman's surf net in the air until it landed solidly on top of his partner. Then he tackled him to the floor. Both paramedics fell heavily onto the rug in a jumble of arms and legs. Then DeSoto rose up quickly to begin smothering the flames. "Are you getting burned?" he said, slapping hands up and down Johnny's back. "NO.. Jeez, watch out for the trash can!" Gage said, pointing a couple of fingers outside the muffling blanket. "It's flaring." Roy vaulted over Johnny, picked up the fire extinguisher that Johnny had dropped onto the floor like a sack of potatoes, and pulled the pin on its handle. "I can do that!" shouted an eager little girl who had most of Henry in her lap. |
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"Stay seated.." Roy shouted, yelling over the hissing vapors of the fire retardant he was blasting out over the garbage can. The fog began to spread out over the floor, covering the children like soup. Hysterical laughter ensued as children began disappearing, one by one beneath the mist. Henry only began to bark louder at all the commotion. Hearing his back sizzling stop, Johnny uncovered himself and shot to his feet, still groping with both hands, still trying to reach behind himself. "Roy..is it out?" "What? The can? Yeah...." "No, my back!" "Turn around.." DeSoto ordered, re-aiming his nozzle in Johnny's direction. "Oh, no! Don't get m---" Johnny sputtered as a rich plume of extinguishing gas tented over him, coating his hair, skin, back and face with a thick drifting flour of white, compression chilled gas. The children jumped to their feet, laughing hysterically and pointing as Johnny slowly exposed when the vapors surrounding him began evaporating. "Very funny.. Ha.ha.ha." Gage glowered to himself. He didn't even feel Roy whirling him around to check out the hole burned in over his T-shirt. "Some demo this is turning out to be." Johnny told him. "Next time, let's use our usual newspaper instead of the school's typing paper. It burns into heavier ash that probably won't float around so inconveniently the next time we light up." he lectured Roy. Gage re-shot into action when a stray ember started drifting towards a little girl's bouncing curls. He snatched the air to catch it like a football player fumbling the ball until it was out. "Ouch!.. That smarts like the mother f--" he bit his lip, hard. "No kidding." said the girl who had offered the putting-out-a-fire advice a minute earlier. "Fire's hot, Mister Fireman. Aren't you supposed to know about that kind of thing already?" Johnny shot her a dirty look and began dusting off his hair to rid himself of all the bright white extinguisher powder that was slowly subliming off because of the room temperature of the air. Soon, all the white mist, and condensate, were gone. They had just settled the kids back into their viewing ring, sitting indian style on the floor in front of them, when the teacher popped her head back into the classroom. "How's it going, guys?" she asked. "Just peachy. I think we're a real hit.." Gage growled at her. Before she could react, Roy stepped in front of Johnny quickly. "Uh,.. everything's under control. We've finished the fire demo part and uh, we'll be doing show and tell of all our medical gear next." he said lamely, thinking fast as he returned the pin back into the handle of the frosted fire extinguisher he still held in both hands. "Ouch, that's cold.." he said, dropping it. Miraculously, it stood upright on the floor neatly by his feet. DeSoto smiled lamely. The teacher substitute took one sniff at the smell of smothered paper smoke in the air. "Hmmph.. Ok, I'll see you in about five minutes or so." she said, looking at both firemen oddly. She especially looked at Johnny's fire retardant sculpted hair. He was looking a bit like James Dean, with the way it was plastered to his head. Hastily, Johnny combed it back to normal with a couple of fingers. "Class, are you having fun yet?" she asked, shrugging. Roy and Johnny began wincing for the worst. "YeahHHHH!" came the loud cheer from every child in the room. "They're really great." said one over-excited little boy. "Ok.. I'm going back to my office again.." the teacher said timidly, reluctantly, pointing back down the school hallway. "Bye.." She left her classroom doorway VERY slowly, one watchful eye after the other. Johnny and Roy and all the kids just waved at her, until she was gone. Then Roy got back down to business. "Ok, now where were we?" he asked the students. "You were gonna answer my question about firefighters.." said the intelligent, but now cranky boy, due to the fact that he wasn't able to speak loudly enough any more over the excited chatter that was building up in the room. "Oh, yeah, that's right. Why we send out so many firemen to medical calls.." Gage said, getting into it at last. He coughed once, for real, to rid his chest of the last of the garbage can smoke and then he took over for his partner, who made an immediate beeline for the water pitcher set out for them both on the teacher's desk. Johnny suppressed a stab of jealousy when he saw Roy down two full glasses in a sequence of rapid swallows. Gage cleared his own parched throat and looked at the boy. "Ok, uh, I'll answer that. But first what's your name?" "It's Jimmy." |
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"Ok, Jimmy." said Gage expansively, rubbing his hands together in deep thought. He kept track of Roy laying out their demo medical gear boxes and equipment onto the floor so the children could get a chance to see what they looked like a little better. "How do you want me to answer that? Simple and easy, or the dictionary definition?" he chuckled, thinking he was being clever in his humor. The boy simply glared at him with his arms crossed. "I AM in the fifth grade... What do you think?" challenged the boy. "Dictionary definition it is.." Gage mumbled, his face struggling to keep its professional firefighter paramedic smile. Then he spoke up haltingly. "Ok..uh, you asked for it. heh." he said with a dry mouth. He nodded gratefully to Roy when DeSoto finally handed him a full glass of cold water. Johnny slammed it back like a cowboy shooting shots of whiskey. "Thanks. I really needed that." he said to Roy. "Ok..the reason why." he said, plunking the empty glass back onto the teacher's desk. "Ok, Jimmy, uh.. it's like this.." he said, flipping the teacher's chair around so he could straddle the seat and lean his still smoke sooty elbows onto its back support. "We respond both an Advanced Life Support (ALS) Paramedic Unit and Basic Life Support (BLS) Engine or Truck Company on all life threatening emergencies. This means that six personnel from the Fire Department might enter your house, with at least two of those personnel being firefighter/paramedics." Johnny elaborated, pointing at both Roy and himself. "That's what we are. Uh, what we do inside our fire department.." he said, then he broke off, forgetting what he was going to say next. "After that fire stunt, you still call yourselves real firefighters?!" asked the cranky kid. Roy, embarrassed, took over, giving Gage some cover in which to recall his thoughts. Johnny didn't protest. He just got off the chair and knelt down over the med gear and started dragging out the items Roy began to speak about while he talked. DeSoto continued where Johnny had left off... "In the event that cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, C.P.R., is needed, the paramedics wouldn't easily be available to provide advanced life support, uh, that is, giving injections and inserting breathing tubes, if they were performing two person CPR themselves. The typical division of labor during these types of emergencies is usually as follows: One paramedic, the primary one, performs advanced airway procedures such as intubation on anyone not breathing. He gathers patient information, makes base hospital contact, receives and gives medication orders, and oversees all aspects of the ongoing and continuing patient care. Are you all with me so far?" Roy asked the children. "Uh huh.." they said, rivetted by DeSoto's story telling. Even Henry was rapt. "Ok." said Roy. "The secondary paramedic administers cardiac defibrillation, uh, heart electrical shocks." he corrected. "And he's the one to gain intravenous access using I.V.s so he can administer medications. And he oversees how the C.P.R. is going in order to make sure that it continues to be effective enough for the patient during different phases of treatment. Two BLS firefighters perform C.P.R..." "Who presses on somebody's chest then if you two are too busy to do it yourselfs?" asked the girl holding Henry. Gage piped up. "Our crewmates do, honey. They're what we call basic life support firefighters. They perform the actual C.P.R., even bagging oxygen into someone's lungs in between compressions." he said, holding up a teaching ambu and squeezing it before he handed it down to a child for a classroom pass around. Then he demonstrated a few cycles of that kind of resuscitation with a second ambu apparatus on the mannikin they had left lying sprawled and bare chested on the floor. "Oh, ok." replied the little girl, squeezing hers a few times with its pressure valve disconnected mask plastered over her face. |
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Johnny added more. "One BLS firefighter also assists us with the preparation of all medical equipment and supplies we may need: the EKG monitor, the suctioning device, the spine board for transportation purposes. And the medicines we would probably find ourselves using, many of which have to be assembled at the rescue scene to maintain sterility." "What's that? Stir?.. star..?" asked the brainy boy, who really wasn't. "Sterility. That means germ free." said Roy. ::Or sp*rm free.:: Gage chuckled mentally in a joking thought. Gage went on with his answer. "One supervisor's needed to oversee the entire incident call, our fire captain, to help with transportation and our patient's house-to-ambulance transfer. He might even be the one consoling family members if someone's really sick and we're working on them. Our captain's free to respond to questions, he can gather witness information, and even request additional fire truck and ambulance or helicopter resources if they're needed." "Cool!" said another little boy, holding a training set of disconnected defibrillator paddles up in the air. He mocked shocked his best buddy sitting next to him who played along by falling over suddenly fake-dead and violated through the heart. Gage grinned at their antics. One little girl raised her hand. "But what if you get there, and it's just a bee sting or something really dumb?" she asked Roy by tugging on his pants. "Oh, that's easy." said DeSoto, kneeling down to show her an oxygen mask. "On many emergency calls, not all our fire personnel are needed. We respond everybody at first for what we think is going to be the worst case scenario, a C.P.R. call, and rank a response all the way down to release-returning personnel by radio dispatch reports, if they're not needed. You see, the absolute best in patient care is always the Los Angeles County Fire Department's top goal and many times an extra pair of helping hands makes giving that care a step way above the state's usual norm, for all the citizens of Torrance." he said. |
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Shyly, the little girl tried putting on the mask, but it was upside down. Gently, Roy connected it up to the dummy oxygen tank that was only full of room air, readjusted it onto her face and turned it on. "There. That's how it fits. Kinda hissy, huh?" he asked her. She nodded. "It sounds like a leaky balloon." she agreed. "Hey, I wanna try.." said her neighbor. Roy affectionately tousled the curls on top of the second little girl's head. "Don't worry. You'll all get a chance to play with everything here." he said to the room at large. "But you're going to have to wait your turn in an orderly fashion, so everybody line up behind what equipment you think you want to play with and Johnny and I'll get you started off. Once you get a chance to see the first thing, move onto the next piece of gear that you wanna see next. Don't worry about missing anything. We won't stop until everybody's had a chance to--" The sound of running feet interrupted them. It was the school's principal. "Mr. DeSoto, Mr. Gage?" asked the well dressed man in a suit. "I'm Mr. Frank, Roosevelt Elementary's head principal." "Yes? What's the problem?" Johnny asked instantly, reading that need off the man easily. "It's one of our third graders. She snuck out of class about ten minutes ago and one of my shaperones just found her out in the playground. Apparently, she was playing on the monkey bars when the whole thing came loose and tipped over on top of her." he explained. "Is she hurt?" Roy asked. "Yes." he replied, as Johnny and Roy grabbed for their helmets and fire jackets. "Is she conscious?" Johnny asked, plying for more details as he pulled out his walkie talkie from his turnout's jacket to call themselves out on a response at their location. He barely noticed Roy running for the parking lot and the rescue squad's real medical gear. "No. But I- I- I.. think she's still breathing.." said the soft spoken, larger man. "Her hand's caught on something. It's real bad. Cindy's out there trying to stop all the bleeding." "Ok, see if you can find this child's parental consent papers." Gage told him. He stopped the man by the arm when the principal tried to leave unthinkingly. "But first, show me the way out to her. " said Johnny, prioritizing things. "Henry, go find the teacher and bring her in here to mind all of the kids." he told their station dog. For safety's sake, he took the acetylene barbeque torch that he and Roy had been using to light the trash can paper and stuffed it away into a jacket pocket. |
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Henry barked once and loped out of the room to perform that task. "Where did Mr. DeSoto go?" asked the principal defensively as they quickly left the classroom. "My partner left only long enough to go pull up our rescue squad to where she's trapped. You say she's how old?" Johnny plied. "Eight and a half. My G*d, how can her teacher be so inattentive? I always keep telling everybody on my staff to keep counting those heads." fretted the principal. Johnny half grinned to calm the man. "It's summer time. The out-of-doors is a siren's call for just about anybody this time of year, Mr. Frank. Can you tell me her first name?" "It's Tasha." "Ok, thanks. We'll handle it from here. Relax, we'll call the cops if you can't find Tasha's papers in time before we have to begin treating her." Mr. Frank began to calm down enough to fall into a fast walk. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gage didn't like what he saw when they finally got outside under the hot sunlight. The playground equipment that had fallen was a multi-story apparatus, complete with an upper level fort and tire swings. He could see the motionless little girl, hanging by her arm about thirty feet in the air. He lifted his live HT to his mouth. "L.A., Squad 51. Roll Engine 51 to our location and a laddertruck. We've a trapped girl inside a metal structural collapse." ##Squad 51, 10-4. Rolling one engine apparatus and a ladder company. Time out: 13: 03.## The playground shaparone had climbed the mock fire pole over the sand pit near the collapsed monkey bars and was holding onto it for dear life with her legs while she held onto the pressure point in Tasha's trapped arm desperately at the fullest extent of her reach. "Hurry! I'm.. getting so tired." the woman moaned. "Ok. All right. Just let go. I don't want you to fall from up there." Johnny said, whipping off his coat and helmet. He immediately went to the base of the pole. "Ok, slide down. I'll catch you on the way down." he said, holding up his hands. |
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"I can't let go. She's bleeding bad." "I've got a tourniquet right here in my pocket!" he said, pulling out one from his hip holster. "I'll get up there and take over. Now come down before you fall down." he told her. ##Squad 51, L.A... Engine 51 reports an E.T.A. of four minutes to your location. Truck 110 is responding in six.## "10-4. We'll be waiting.." Gage replied HT. Gasping, trembling, the woman grasped the play fire pole, leaving behind bloody trails from the soiled fingers she had been using to aid Tasha. She slipped down the last eight feet to the ground when her gripping strength finally failed to hold her onto the slippery pole. Johnny caught her as her feet impacted the sand. He absorbed some of her momentum by rolling both the woman and himself over onto one side into a muffled tackle. "You all right? You didn't sprain your ankles?" he asked. "No," she sobbed, brushing messy hair away from her face with her arms as she avoided getting Tasha's blood onto her skin subconsciously. "Just help her." she cried, staying where she was, lying on the sand. Gage immediately started climbing, using his gloves to dry off the pole as he ascended. Closer and closer, he rose up towards the limp little girl hanging by just her left hand from twisted knot of overstressed playground pipework. He saw something thick and red, dripping and falling by him in a steady rain from up above. ::That's arterial.:: he decided, grunting as he worked his way higher and higher. The scent of blood only made him climb faster. He saw Roy running with the resuscitation gear and trauma boxes. "Leave those for now and get belts and ropes. She's way up here with a life threatening bleed!" Gage shouted at his partner. Reaching the top of the pole, Johnny locked his feet and ankles around the pole to hold himself in place and he reached over for the little girl's neck and upper arm. Clamping a hold back over her effected brachial artery, he reached a second hand out by the fingertips, trying to stretch far enough to feel for her carotid pulse. ::Is it there?:: he wondered, not seeing clear signs of breathing because of the wind blowing the girl's long trailing blond hair back and forth over her face and torso. Johnny stretched even closer and very precariously from the great height he had climbed on the playground fire pole. "Tasha? Can you hear me?" he asked. |
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************************************************** From: "Pat or Cassidy or Jeff" <voyagerliveaction@yahoo.com> Date: Sun Feb 4, 2007 1:05 am Subject: Sheer Deprivation... Johnny was regretting his choice of action and decision to just charge right on in. "Roy, hurry up! I'm getting real tired here..." he grunted, holding tight to the pole, and the little girl as hard as he could. "I'm coming up!" Roy hollered, climbing with three belts, two rope coils and gear enough to set up their three anchor points above the girl. "Is she viable?" "Yeah.." gasped Gage. "...for now. As soon as you get her tied off, get her O.P.A." he grunted, yelling around the tourniquet strap he had moved and now held ready in between his teeth. Roy quickly negotiated the tilted playground equipment he still trusted to be secure around the child. DeSoto tied off his belt on a primary strut he could see directly jutting up from a concrete plug beneath the ground and he reached for the first of his spare belts. "Get the girl's.." Johnny groaned, willing his fingers to keep on gripping the pulse point in Tasha's arm. To Johnny, the tang of blood began to smell even saltier when the sweat running down his face began to evaporate. "Nope. You're first." Roy grinned tightly as he reached over towards them. "She's not going anywhere with that trapped hand and only you are in danger of falling. I'm sure you don't want Cap seeing you like this." DeSoto said, lowering himself carefully down until he hung above his partner and the child. "Don't move." he told Gage. "Wouldn't dream of it." Johnny said, not looking away from the unconscious child's face. "Risky, doing this, I know, but oh, so worth it." he grimaced, blowing away a trickle of perspiration that was rolling down into his eye. DeSoto snuggled on Johnny's belt to the anchor point he had created above them all and hooked him in securely. "Okay." |
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Gage let go and hung arms and legs limp in instant relief. A few seconds later, he deftly applied the girl's tourniquet after hugging her to himself with his legs. Roy climbed back up half a foot on his rope and got on Tasha's head long enough to insert the short airway and get in another fast primary assessment. "She's open, but panting." he reported. "Color's still fair." he said putting on the child's harness and belt. "But I wouldn't count on it staying that way." DeSoto reported. "Pulse's 120 and weak." Gage made a noise of frustration. "Are you going up top to take some of the pressure off this hand?" Roy tilted his helmet out of his way as he glanced up to where she was firmly trapped by metal. "Yeah.." he decided. "The monkey bars on your side of her are still okay. Here." he said, passing off a pediatric ambu bag that he had stuffed inside of his jacket. "She might need this before the engine arrives." Johnny took the manual breather, holding the bag valve mask in between his teeth while he cut away the clothes covering Tasha's injury. "This, too!" DeSoto told him, passing off a small adjustable cervical collar. Johnny sized and fitted the collar snugly into place to immobilize Tasha's head firmly for the lifting move to come. Roy slowly, inch by inch, made his way on top of and over the section of steel pipework that hadn't snapped and warped into failure. "Is she set down there?" DeSoto yelled down. "I'm gonna take her weight off that arm in a few seconds." he warned. "Yeah. Yeah." Gage answered. "Then bring me up a little so I can ventilate her. She's starting to get suppressed too much on her inhalations." Roy hurried and got the job done. Once he was satisfied that Johnny was comfortable and able to carry out his end of things, Roy concentrated on learning how the girl's left hand was pinned around the twisted metal rods that used to be the climbing struts of the elevated jungle gym. He marked a second written time in ink right on the girl's skin above Gage's tourniquet when he released the band for a few moments. DeSoto retightened it to halt Tasha's active bleeding once he saw that her hand and some of the unfractured fingers and knuckles blossomed back into pink shades. "What's she gonna need?" Johnny asked Roy as he gave the girl an assisted breath of air on the bag. |
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Roy sighed, thinking hard. "Just a sawzall. If we shear the main beam on her end and these two grip bars tangling up her hand, she'll come free." he replied. "Good deal,..uh,..an update..." Gage gasped tiredly. "Her chest's still clear. Find anything else on her?" "No. Nothing. Just that hand, those three fingers and the arm we already know about." Roy told him. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sirens grew in the distance and soon Engine 51 roared into view followed by Ladder Truck 9. The two trucks pulled up at the edge of the school yard. Hank Stanley and the captain of the Quint ran up to get info from Squad 51's paramedics in person. Hank put a hand to his mouth for shouting when he saw that Roy and Johnny's hands were far too busy for portable radio use. "What's her condition and situation?" he yelled up to them. "Poor breather. Hypovolemic shock!" Johnny shouted down. "Get permission for a couple of I.V.s, Cap, for a nine year old female." At the same time, Roy got the ladder company captain's attention. "Get a sawzall in the bucket. A peds backboard with her in the basket will be the fastest way down." Johnny's list kept coming. "And bring a splint with ya. For her upper arm, hand and shoulder." he added. Cap did them one better. "And a second paramedic team to take over for you once she's on the ground. You both are getting depleted too long strengthwise to be allowed to do any transporting." Stanley ordered, seeing how much Roy and Gage were mouth breathing through growing fatigue despite their safety belts and supporting ropes. "Kelly, Stoker, go up with nine's men in the basket. Bring the squad's I.V. box with that spineboard and a universal air splint with a ton of elastic bandages. Take over ventilations while nine's crew cuts her free and immobilizes her.... Roy is she fully secured?" he asked, meaning both Tasha's airway and her dangling position. "Yes!" DeSoto shouted. "All right." Hank waved. "Her ambulance is on the way and your relief's coming in one. Hang in there. I got Lopez on the biophone to Rampart right now." DeSoto gestured affirmation as he began checking and rechecking all three of the anchor points he had rigged for supporting everybody in the air. Then he contented himself with resting a few monitoring fingers against the rapid pulse flickering fitfully in Tasha's throat. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Rampart this is Engine 51." began Marco from where he crouched on the street a little way from the active rescue scene. Already, he could see sparks flying as the stricken child was slowly untangled and sawed away from the collapsed playground cage on the second level. "How do you read?" Lopez hailed. Dixie McCall toggled the base station's reply switch. ##Unit calling in, go ahead.## "Rampart, we've a little girl trapped by the left hand with possible limb and finger fractures and severe hemorrhaging. She's unconscious. Airway, bleeding and breathing are under effective manual control. She's still undergoing extrication at this time. Our E.T.A. to the ground is..." Lopez looked up and eyeballed their rescue team's progress. They were in the midst of a coordinated move sliding the girl onto a roped in backboard inside the ladder bucket. "....about five minutes. She has on one tourniquet." ##10-4, 51.## McCall replied. ##What's your child's approximate age?## |
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