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Richter Six, by Michael Donovan, is a written, but never filmed writer's script from the actual TV series Emergency! |
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Cap nodded, loosening his helmet's chin strap. "I just went over it with the C.P. staff." He showed them a map of the hospital. "Every area's been gone through, except these three.." he indicated with a finger. "All on the ground floor. The pharmacy, medical records, and the kitchen." Early had an idea, flipping through his papers. "Maybe we can narrow it down." he offered. The others didn't catch on. Joe reiterated. "All four are hospital employees." he said, studying the map Cap had given them. "One's a custodian, two are dieticians, and one's a maintenance man." Johnny thought he saw where the doc was heading. "None of them would normally have business in the Pharmacy or Medical Records, would they?" Early snapped his fingers. "That leaves the kitchen." Hank smiled, appreciating Joe's angle more and more. "It's sound. I'll have a talk with the Operational Chief. Maybe we can change our priorities." Joe eyeballed him eagerly. "If we're right, four lives may depend on it." They hurried into action, heading for Incident Command. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Full darkness had closed in around the Command Trailer as Hank Stanley stepped down its steps, closing the door. DeSoto, Gage and other firemen were waiting for him at the bottom stair. Hank smiled. "The Chief agreed. He's moving all available resources to the kitchen area." Chet smiled. "Great. Let's go." Cap held up a hand before they scattered for fresh gloves. "Hold on." he chuckled. "I appreciate your enthusiasm. But your tour of duty's over. You guys need some rest. " |
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Kelly shoved out his lower lip casually. "Not me. Besides, if we find em tonight, there will BE no tomorrow. You have yourself one volunteer, Cap." Chet said, saluting him with firm humor. Most everyone else agreed with him, murmuring. Stanley saw them all step forward. He shrugged. "It's your time." he said finally, giving in. "Then let's get to it." Gage said for his fellow stationmates. They made for the base of the hospital's ruins, at a run. ************************************************** From : patti keiper <pattik1@hotmail.com> Sent : Thursday, May 24, 2007 2:59 PM Subject : The Ties to Life.. Richter Six, Mark VII Limited and Universal Studios Production # 35716 Original Teleplay Character Dialogue was written by Michael Donovan, August 30th, 1972. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Johnny stopped in his tracks. He had forgotten Roy's situation for a moment. His smile fell away when he saw the sober reflection on DeSoto's. "Roy, you go on ahead." he said, pointing to the relief tent. "I hate to leave you guys." Roy said, ansing. "Forget it. I'd go myself if I didn't know about my family." Johnny replied quickly, feeling a lot. Roy stood there, looking lost in his turnout jacket. "I've got to go, Johnny." Gage finally grinned, making shooing gestures. "Well, quit talking and get outta here." Roy nodded, starting to move away. Gage felt a pang for Roy when he stumbled once, starting to run for the communications tent. ::We're all tired.:: Johnny thought. ::And scared, him most of all.:: |
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DeSoto nodded, grabbing a sip from his water canteen. "And chances of survival don't look so good either." Chet Kelly pulled away some debris near them, a slab of concrete, revealing a void. "Well, here's about six feet of free space." he celebrated. The gang moved into where he was kneeling as Kelly began crawling down into the gap. "If I dig around long enough, we might tunnel under every--" Chet's sentence was drowned out as a tremendous aftershock erupted, causing new debris to fall around them in great clumps and clouds of dust. "Kelly! Watch it!" Johnny hollered as soon as it started. Chet, hearing him, tried to escape his confining hole, but it was too late. He disappeared beneath a pile of falling debris. |
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Little time was wasted. The gang started feverishly digging at the pile of rubble on top of Chet's position. Gage began to cut into a large cross beam with a K-12. He finally cut through enough to shut the saw down. Others moved in and muscled it out of the way. Gage moved back to give them room. "Kelly?!" Johnny yelled. "Can you hear me?" The gang froze, locked into ice, listening for a response. Five seconds went by. Then ten. Fifteen. Kelly's muffled voice filtered up through the boulders. "Yeah..*gasp*..Listen, ......I can't......do much." Gage didn't like the sound of his voice. "Are you hurt?" Chet didn't reply back right away. When he did, he already sounded weaker. "I think so. My....my shoulder." his voice panted. "Don't move around then." Johnny hollered back. Hank tapped Lopez and Stoker on the shoulders. "Let's get some support beams in there." he ordered. Mike and Marco grabbed a couple of hydraulic support poles and they began working to jam them into the fallen structure arching over Chet's location. Gage and DeSoto continued to pull at the rubble until finally, Johnny broke through. He looked up and saw Kelly, lying on his side, covered in debris. Johnny wormed his way in on his stomach to his side. "How you doing?" he asked, pulling off a glove to feel Kelly's carotid. |
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Chet didn't lift his head. "Pain's....starting to creep up on me." "Where?" Gage asked. "Right shoulder...It's hurting..*gasp* ...bad." Kelly's face was glistening with sweat. Gage shuffled around on the shards, examining Kelly briefly. Johnny sighed when pressure to his abdomen didn't cause Chet to scream. ::No belly involvement here, causing that shoulder pain. Good.:: he thought, counting Chet's respirations with a hand. A few light fingers elicted a scream over the point of Chet's shoulder. Gage apologized by gripping his face to hold him still as he trembled. Johnny began to back out when he trusted that Kelly could stay conscious for him. "Sit tight, partner." He reconfirmed that he could still get Chet's pulse down to the wrist. ::Pressure's still good.:: Johnny sighed in his mind. ::Good enough for a pain killer.:: he decided. Chet opened his eyes. They were very bright, not yet cloudy with his growing bodily distress. "Have I got a.. choice?" he tried to joke. Gage got out the same way he came. He was helped free of the hole by DeSoto. Hank gathered close to hear. Johnny told them. "He's got a broken shoulder." DeSoto guessed Johnny's plan of action. "Morphine?" Johnny looked at them all. "He's gonna need it." Then he buried his worry down deep. "Let's get this hole a little wider." They moved in, resuming their dig as fast as they could while Roy set up a line to Rampart and dragged the drug box over to where Johnny could reach it. |
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was midnight in Treatment Room One at the hospital emergency room. Chet Kelly was immobilized in a fresh shoulder splint and bandage that already bore a tangle of still damp teasing autographs from just about the entire staff of Rampart. And his crewmates. "...and would you believe I volunteered?" he said, feeling no pain from the narcotic that was still working on him. Kel Brackett chuckled. "I thought you were in the Army once, Kelly." Chet blinked a couple of times, thinking. "Yeah, I was. What's that got to do with it?" he wondered blearily as his EKG bleeped out near his head. Brackett regarded him with amusement while he took another blood pressure. "Wasn't that the first lesson? Don't volunteer for anything?" Chet shrugged, and didn't wince at all. "This was was different, doc." Kel sighed, taking off his stethoscope. "Yeah, it is." Kelly sighed, and watched his I.V. drip for a while. Finally, he spoke. "Have you heard anything from the guys?" |
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Brackett hung his head. "They're still digging." Chet squeezed his eyes lids together, fighting off the sleepies. "Have they found anyone yet?" Brackett shook his head. "Not yet." Kelly panted with remembered suffocation. "I was in there... only about twenty minutes. Those ....poor souls." he said, gripping his chest sympathetically. He almost pulled the oxygen mask that was around his neck, back over his nose and mouth. Almost. Brackett frowned at the image in his head about those still buried in sympathy. But then Dixie poked her head into the door. "Kel." she motioned. Kel crossed over to her, carrying Chet's chart. McCall indicated the corridor. "Kathy Williams, she'd like to see you." Brackett nodded, passing off his examination chart to Dixie. "Get Kelly to the cast room as soon as you can. That morphine is going to start wearing off." Dixie nodded and entered the room as Brackett left for the hallway. He found her sitting in a wheel chair by the nurse's station. She was in her own robe and slippers. Kathy afforded him a half smile. "How are you feeling?" he asked. "Okay. Modern medicine.." she chided. "Put mother up and get her moving, eh?" she smirked. But then Williams sobered. "Doctor Brackett, I've been giving it a lot of thought. I'd....like to see Mike now." she told him, with resolve filling her eyes. Brackett sighed to himself and smiled. He moved to begin pushing her down the corridor to the elevators leading to the surgical floor leaning close to listen to Kathy rehearse what she was going to say. He set a hand on her shoulder and wasn't surprised, when she grasped it for encouragement. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kel knocked on a patient room door and pushed it open. "I have a visitor for you, Mike." he said. Mr Williams was lying with his head raised in bed. His eyes were covered with thick, clean bandages, wound firmly around his head. He angled his face in apprehension, when a delicate perfume told him who it was. "Mike?" Kathy said as Kel wheeled her to her husband's side. "Kathy...." he sighed. Then he got angry and pressed back onto the bed stiffly. "I told you I didn't want visitors, Dr. Brackett." |
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Kathy didn't flinch. She leaned forward. "Mike, I'm your wife, remember?" Williams didn't soften. "I can't get it out of my mind." Kathy glanced to Kel and then back at her husband, when Brackett nodded encouragingly. "Sounds to me like you're...you're just giving up." she said, pulling herself up straight, feeling ire for the first time. "No," said Williams sharply. "I'm facing facts, Kathy. I'm blind. You know it. I know it. And nothing's going to change." he said flatly, turning away from her. Kathy melted, moving close to Mike's face. "I'm told there's a chance." Mike shook his head. "Kathy, I'm a doctor, remember?" Kathy started smiling and the tears began to fall as her joy began to soar. "You're also a father, Mike. Can we at least tell our son you tried.. you had some hope?" she pleaded with conviction. "The baby, you....." he broke off. William's I.V.'d hand groped around until he had found her small, tiny one. His fingers found a hospital bracelet taped around her wrist and his mouth dropped open at the final piece of evidence that told him everything he was hearing, was true. Kathy nestled her soft face near his torn one. "He's beautful, Mike." Williams laid quietly for long seconds, slowly moving his head. "Mike?" she asked, lifting her head from his shoulder. She felt her husband grip her grasping fingers tightly and he began to cry silently. Feeling the old love returning, Kathy brought his hand up to her cheek, desperately crying, softly, so only he could hear her. Brackett lowered his head gratefully, and backed out of the room as softly as he could. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kel ran into Kelly as he was being wheeled from the treatment room by two attendants.. Chet held up his good arm above the gurney, calling for a halt. Dixie was nearby at the desk, working steadily. "Dix." Chet asked. "Heard anything from the guys?" McCall shook her head. "Not for an hour or so." she replied. "They're keeping the radio on. I'll check if you'd like.." she offered. Chet gripped the erected railing bar on his bed with his left hand. "Would you?" Dixie nodded and crossed to the open base station at his feet. "Rampart Base to Rescue 51." she hailed. |
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## 51, go ahead, Rampart.## came Johnny's voice over the sounds of sawing. Dixie smiled. "I have a fireman here that would like to know how things are going." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the kitchen, it was obvious much work had been done over the past few hours. Gage cupped the biophone over his mouth as he answered her. "51, it's slow. No luck so far. How is he?" Johnny asked, dropping formal on the air conduct. ##Coming along just fine, 51.## Dixie answered. "10-4." said Gage. Then he smirked. "Tell him, it's because we gave him the best of care." he jabbed a little louder so Chet would hear him over the K-12. His vocal volume over did itself when the buzzing noise cut off as it completed its task. Dixie started laughing. ##10-4, 51.## |
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Over the line, Johnny could hear Chet chattering, animatedly. All was well. Gage shook his head in disbelief and in humor and he hung up the biophone. Then the weight of the job still ahead fell heavily back onto him. He rejoined Roy who was probing the rubble in a new place with a Kennedy probe. "Anything?" DeSoto shook his head, pulling off the earphones, looking like the mood that had ruled him most of the day. Dejection colored him. "If they're in here, there's one chance in a million they're still alive." Johnny nodded, pursing his lips together in nonacceptance of the poor odds. "Then we give them that chance." he said, beginning to work at his assigned debris clearing area once more with renewed strength. Roy studied Gage in full agreement, his expression reflecting affirmation. He also dug in, pulling a large stack of debris from a wall. A clang of metal greeted him and he jumped back in surprise when plaster fell away to reveal the edge and latch of a large walk-in refrigeration box. "Johnny!" he shouted. Gage, dropping what he was doing, hurried over. His eyes got big fast when he realized the same thing Roy was thinking. He felt the door carefully. "Is it possible they...?" DeSoto started grinning. "One chance if there was any." he said. Johnny nodded eagerly and turned to the others working nearby. "Hey! We just found a new priority!" he shouted happily. Hank and the gang from Station 51 looked up and began quickly moving to the newly found door. Gage and DeSoto were already hard at work, clearing the rest of it free, pulling debris away from it. Johnny reached for the latch, hesitating, as the spectre of death and doubt suddenly flooded forth. Roy nodded at him, smiling in encouragement to go ahead. |
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Gage threw his shoulder into budging the handle. It wasn't enough. So DeSoto helped him. Together, the two paramedics forced the door open and the entire crew moved inside to gaze into the box. Marco Lopez flipped on a large flashlight. Two females and two males were lying on the floor. They were exhausted, weak, but they were moving... and alive. The gang reacted and crouched inside individually to start their rescue and extrication. Collectively, they were gratified almost openly that the battle for life against time, finally, had been won. Gage and DeSoto began calling out found vitals to Stoker, who was note taking near the still open to base biophone. |
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DeSoto broke out of his reverie in the classroom as the tale he had been telling to his and Johnny's paramedic students concluded. "..and they were the last four to be found. We went home at ten o'clock the next morning." he smiled, rebuttoning up his white lab coat in front of the desk. One of the students lifted his chin. "...And found your house, a shambles. Like mine." he said empathetically. Gage sucked down another gulp of cold coffee, spilling a little on his instructor's coat. A student tossed him an abdominal pad so he could avoid a stain. "Wasn't bad at all, I know." said Johnny, thanking the student with a look as he wiped his lapel dry. "I helped him patch up the cracks." he said with amusement. The group chuckled and the reluctant student from earlier spoke up when the babble had died down. "Whatever happened to the doctor that gave you guys a hand?" he asked. |
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"Mike Williams?" Gage clarified. His eye was captured by the sight of a figure approaching their training trailer, just outside. "Well,..." Johnny said significantly. "He had his operation and..the result... you can see for yourself." he grinned as the trailer's door knob began to turn. "He'll be handling your next session." he chuckled as the whole class turned around to regard the new man who was arriving. The door opened and Doctor Mike Williams entered, carrying a handful of pass out material. It was more than obvious, that he wasn't blind at all. Johnny held out a hand, looking scholarly. "Gentlemen, I'd like to introduce your next instructor, Doctor Mike Williams." he said. The class broke out into applause that was smattered with a few cheers. Williams looked up from his organizing with confusion enough, that it caused him to move over to where Gage and DeSoto were standing. "What's this all about?" he asked, puzzled. |
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DeSoto decided not to enlighten him. "They're glad you're here, doc." he said simply. Johnny and he smiled at each other knowingly as the applause went on long and loud as Williams looked about in polite confusion at everybody around him. Outside, the day turned absolutely beautiful... Especially in Roy and Johnny's eyes. They both smiled when they saw the reluctant student off in a corner by himself, already diving deeply into his paramedic books with a solidly renewed conviction. FIN Episode Forty Five, Richter Six© by Michael Donovan Season Six, Emergency Theater Live Mark VII Productions and Universal owns all of Emergency!© and its Characters. © 2007. All rights reserved. |
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