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************************************************** From: patti k (pattik1@hotmail.com) Sent: Mon 2/09/09 1:29 PM Subject: Popsicle "Guess what I figured out?" Chet said to the gang at large. It was noon time and the morning's frigid snow bath was just a dim memory, fading fast. "What's that?" Mike Stoker asked finally, when no one else replied as they relaxed or cooked or played again around camp. "I like being warm, that's what." Kelly told him, half serious. "And I'm really glad the sun decided to cooperate with us and kick out the same heat we had yesterday." he said, burying the last traces of snow he still found in the shadows under his lawnchair with a restless hiking boot. "What's the temperature at now, Roy?" Roy replied, no longer cocooned inside of his plaid winter jacket and sleeping bag. "55 °F and rising." he said, peering at the barometer box duct taped to the picnic table where he sat. "Ah, almost feels like I'm home again..." he said, cradling the device with a protective hand. Marco chuckled. "That's if you close your eyes and picture palm trees.." Stoker smirked. "Have you been nesting near that thing since we got here, Roy? I thought we were supposed to get away from technology and just get back to nature this weekend." DeSoto blinked at him matter of factly, contented eyed. "I like to keep myself well informed when I'm in new places. Weather wise angle included." Hank rubbed his nose. "Why torture yourself? You already know the rest of the country is automatically gonna be colder than home is." "Yeah, I know. I know." DeSoto insisted defensively. "But old habits die hard. I remember how cold I got on that d*m*d ferry in Seattle last year going to that convention and ever since then, I like to be prepared." Gage regarded him ruefully. "You were underdressed. I told you turtle necks weren't enough. But those fire girls were sure good company. I never even felt that chill." DeSoto started grinning, but for a different reason. "And neither did that newborn calf. He was actually kind of cute once we got him dried off. And I still can't believe a seven year old barn kid taught me how to dress properly in winter weather once his cow had finished giving birth." "Not so unusual, if you ask me." said Gage. "Farmers and ranchers are the best weathermen around." he declared from his tipped chaise lounge, its backrest supported on a tree. Chet rose to the bait, aiming a coffee mug warmed finger in Johnny's direction. "Okay, smarty pants. You're a rancher. Predict our weather for the rest of the day..." Kelly challenged. Johnny narrowed his eyes matter of factly. Then he peered up into the sky, scanning it thoughtfully. His eyes drifted shut and he sucked in a huge breath of air slowly before blowing it back out again. Then he opened his shirt to let the air in a little closer to his skin. The others waited with unveiled amusement at his antics. Gage finally spoke, keeping his eyes closed loosely. "Snowstorm's blown itself out over the ocean. Feel it weakening over there?" he announced, gesturing at the last patch of dark sky to their east mysteriously while still blind. "Next, a wind's gonna pick up inland and get a little gusty." On cue, the fall colored trees began to sway for the first time, softly rustling, with growing energy. Johnny smiled. "And it'll be luke warm all day right where it is now. That heavy fog down valley's gonna stay with us in the low spots. Pressure's rising fast, but not fast enough to dispel it." "What is it?" Chet asked, scoffing in doubt. "28.9 to 29.1 millimeters mercury or so.." Gage told him, not opening his eyes. "With relative humidity in the eighties." Roy almost fell out of the chair when he leaned back to confirm that check on the barometer unit near him. He blinked in surprise, gaping at his partner with a question half formed on his lips. |
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"My neck's beginning to creak when I move it." Johnny replied to Roy's unspoken 'how did you do that?' reaction. "Only does that when the weather's turning fair while still wet." Chet laughed. "That's how you know?" Gage dropped his poised analyzing pretense and glared actively at Chet. "Yeah, that's part of how I know. If you guys'd just stay quiet every now and then to reach out with your senses and listen to what your body's telling you, you'd be able to predict the weather, too. It's nothing special. Pay attention to your surroundings while letting go of a few of them when we're back home once or twice and you'll see what I'm talking about." Kelly waggled his eyebrows. "I don't think I want to do that. I might get mugged on my front porch." The gang laughed, recalling the neighborhood Chet hailed from in east L.A. There was a pregnant pause when both Hank and Kelly eyed up the still simmering coffee pot on the fire grill at the same time. Ferally. Suddenly, both their hands shot out for its handle. Cap's longer arm won out over Irish speed and he toasted Chet triumphantly with it high into the air. "Still too slow." he crowed. Then he poured out the last dregs into his stone pottery mug and clanked the empty pot back down again. "Ahhh," he sipped in satisfaction. "Your turn to get more water." Stanley announced as was his right as the winner. "The river's that way." he said, pointing into the fog. Chet scoffed a gesture and picked up the coffee pot, hugging it close to his chest for its radiant warmth and meager comfort. "It's still cold down there." he complained. "Why so it is. Huh, imagine that. Guess you're gonna haveta... just bundle up there, pal." Hank said, still smiling broadly. The others tittered. Stoker chortled. "Rules of the coffee game.." Mike teased. "Last man out rebrews the pot. You're going." "All right, all right. Don't rush me. Geez.." Kelly said, zipping up his jacket to the chin. He eyed up the woods unenthusiastically. "Hurry up, I'm getting thirsty here. I might burn the waffles for being so distracted." said Marco, licking his lips, through the fire smoke. He was half serious. "Okay, I'm off. I'm gone.." Chet whined back, trudging slowly for the tent. He reached down for the silver pail. "Not the baby bucket. The five gallon collapsible." Hank ordered. "Pump's in the red sack." "Aw, Cap. That'll take forever!" Chet complained loudly. "Not if you're fast about it. Now shoo." Kelly gave up his protesting and picked up the crumpled cube and hand pump satchel. As he tramped off into the trees he pulled on his winter gloves, and both hoods of his jacket, grumbling. The fog swallowed him up. Chet found the river by sound and was grateful the heavy mist had lifted over the water. He crouched down to set up and string the pump tubing into the five gallon jug's port. He shivered and glanced downstream as he cranked the wheel. Icy water began to fill the container. He saw scour marks on the banks from the high water that must have been there a scant hour ago from the effects of the snow storm of the night before. |
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He looked upstream, and startled. Barely visible in the glowing fog, a partially unclothed man lay face up in the water next to the remnants of a shattered, brightly colored water kayak. His helmet and life vest, were missing. Kelly shot to his feet and began to splash over to him quickly, blowing triple blasts on a hiker's distress whistle that he snatched out from a lanyard around his neck in an alert to the others. Seconds later, Chet heard the noisy snapping cracks of breaking branches and the hiss of undergrowth being shoved aside hastily as the gang came running. "Chet?!" came Hank's worried shout. "We're here. What's happening? We got the radio!" "Guys! On the double.. There's a man down in the water!!" Kelly yelled back urgently still stumbling over the submersed rocks he couldn't see in the shallow, fast flowing current, trying to hurry. "Face up but not moving, forty feet upstream of me!" "In how deep?" Hank roared, still invisible to Chet. "Way under a foot! He's snagged on a rock." He heard an unseen Marco reply. "I'll get us gear!" Kelly dimly saw Gage and Roy adjust their flight to the river according to his directions. But they were forced to slow their bounding as they reached the still thick, blanketing fog hanging over the water. Chet shouted again as he tried to find foot stones to use by boot toe's feel under the water. "There's a fallen birch log across the water, right where he is. See it? His feet are on top of it. The air's real clear here down low." |
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A splash announced somebody's arrival the moment Chet reached the kayaker. It was Roy. "We got him!" said DeSoto as Chet and he crouched swiftly over the man's head, on the submersed sandbar. Kelly moulded his fingers for a jaw thrust and opened the man's mouth under Roy's ear. The man's skin had stiffened and was a pale white blue in the fog filtered sunlight. "Is he breathing?" Kelly asked him. ************************************************** Subject: Popsicle Wrap From: patti k (pattik1@hotmail.com) Sent: Wed 2/11/09 2:53 AM "I can't tell that yet." DeSoto replied. "But keep him open for now. Let me check a few more things first." he said, over the noise of the flowing water. "But.." "Chet, he may be in a diving reflex. He doesn't need any more oxygen for a while if his heart's still beating. But I have to know that second fact for sure before we start messing with him in any way." Hank, Johnny and Stoker jumped into the shallows and joined them swiftly. Stanley began to radio out from where he stood upstream as a safety, making sure river debris and pieces of the large kayak wasn't going to barrel in on the current to their position. "Marker 70 to Appalachian Central. Mayday. Mayday.." "Where're you at?" Gage asked Roy in a check list. "Just starting the primary." DeSoto replied quickly. He didn't miss the distressed look on Kelly's face. Reaching down, DeSoto pulled one of the man's arms away from where it was curled in its fetal position against his chest, gently straightening it out to his side. It immediately curled back again, jelly slow. "He's still alive, Chet. Dead muscles can't contract." Kelly grabbed for the man's wrist, with a free hand, feeling for a pulse. "I don't feel anything." "That's because of vasoconstriction in his arms and legs." Roy said, next groping for a careful carotid pulse. "Everything's severely slowed down. He could be breathing only once every 30 seconds, because with this water chilling him, his body doesn't need to any faster." He frowned in concentration, as he probed for the artery. "I still can't find one, Johnny." |
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DeSoto looked up from where he was feeling the man's spine for problems. "Guys, we're not going to try and rewarm him out here in the woods. We don't have the proper equipment to do that safely. We want to just stabilize his core temperature and prevent any further heat loss." Roy explained. "Johnny, nothing's obviously off on his spinal column." Gage coughed eagerly. "Then a manual move's warranted if we're careful." "So let's get him out of here then." said Chet urgently, worried. Roy remained calm and collected. "Marco, get ready to cut off his clothes. We have to dry him off completely once we get him up to you." DeSoto shouted. "I'm set. Also, there are plenty of branches and sticks up here we can use to build a travois." Lopez reported. Johnny smiled. "Good going. We needed some way to transfer him to a landing zone without jarring him alot. His heart's sensitive to physical disturbances right now. He's still at a high risk for going into V-fib at the slightest physical shock. We are going to take a ton of time every step of the way to mimimize that." Gage said, feeling up and down the man's limbs for fractures and injuries. "That's odd, Roy. He seems clear here, too. No blood or deformities." "Maybe he collapsed just from the cold." Chet hoped. "He could have been wandering around in last night's storm for a while, confused from his hypothermia." "That's probably what happened to him. Look,.." Marco said. "I found his helmet in the brush." he said, holding up a red one that had the same serial number as the kayak on it. It was whole and uncracked. DeSoto shook his head in negation. "We're still assuming broken back/broken neck. Get down here with us. He's set to move. Kelly, keep tabs on his vitals. Mike, you've got his head so you're coordinating all of us. We'll level up on your count." Roy said. Cap came back moments later from a dead run. "I got out a transmission. They're sending us a chopper and a paramedic land unit. ETA ten minutes." "Good news.. We've a pulse and breathing, Cap." Chet said, filling him in. "Terrific. Knew he wasn't gone yet. His eyes are still reacting to sunlight." and Hank took his place in the inches deep water to help with their lift and carry. Chet Kelly looked down and saw that it was true. |
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************************************************** Subject: Fate Squared. Date: Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:43 am From: patti k <pattik1@hotmail.com> The gang slowly and smoothly carried the man spine straight, up the river bank. They rounded the small slope that led over to the insulating sheet lying on the dried grass in full warm sunlight and set him down gently. Stoker knelt once more to continue his breathing support while the others began applying ski cap after ski cap onto the kayaker's head. Swiftly, Marco began stripping away the man's water ice frozen clothing while Cap and the paramedics dried him off thoroughly with a few sweaters. "Definite inspiratory efforts here. Still just a couple a minute." Mike reported as he listened and watched the man's chest and mouth in between ventilations. "Pulse's ten." said Chet. "It's getting more erratic, guys." DeSoto frowned, checking the man's eyes. "His pupils are starting to dilate. Bundle up, Mike." Roy told him. "Keep your temperature really elevated by zipping up your jacket and hood. We'll set you on oxygen to give right back to him. He's running short on it now..." he said, thinking hard about treatment. "Chet?" "I heard." Kelly replied, snatching for their jump bag. "Cannula on two liters, right?" "Yeah." said Johnny. "Make it four. It won't be too irritating for me right away." Stoker said. Gage nodded in agreement. "Okay, the more the merrier." Chet didn't disturb Mike's position working with the insulated pocket mask as he got Stoker going on their D tank. He fitted the prongs around Mike's face and chin, hooking the tubing over his ears and out of the way over his shoulder. "If you think you're getting colder in the slightest, I'll take over. I'm sweating." he told Mike. "I'll let you know when." said Stoker. |
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Cap issued an order. "Marco, smoke up our campfire some more and have a mirror set for signalling. I'll lay out these wet clothes and pieces of the kayak onto the snow so the pilot can locate us easier." "Right, Cap." Lopez said, running up the hill towards their deer camp. Again, Roy was puzzled over their patient. "Johnny, he still doesn't appear to be grossly injured." he said as he and Johnny carefully checked again for problems. "There's not a mark on him anywhere obvious that I can see." "I agree." said Johnny, beginning to tuck the sheet around the man after placing sock wrapped hot stones at the sides of his neck, groin and armpits. "Just the same, I'll rig him up a C-collar from rolled clothes. Once he's shelled up snug, we can find something flat to strap him onto for a backboard." "How about a backpack rack?" suggested Stoker. "That'll work." Gage decided. "Great idea." Then he turned his attention to Roy. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" "Umm hmm.." replied Roy. "He's got severe hypothermia for sure. There's active cold diuresis setting in." Roy concluded. "How much do you think he's losing?" Hank asked them. "Quite a bit of fluid, Cap. Now I'm kicking myself for not bringing a few I.V.s along, too." Gage grumbled as he and Roy started to quickly zip up the layers of sleeping bags around the kayaker that Marco had set up for them. "Smoke's set and noticable." Lopez said, pointing up into the sky as he returned. The others followed his gaze and nodded. "Good going, pal." said Hank. "And I brought some rope from the rover so we can build that travois." Lopez said. "Our belts aren't going to be enough." "Thanks.." said Chet, starting in on that task with his hunting knife and a small axe. "Maybe this guy still has a story to tell." Cap wondered and he started to go through their patient's discarded denim jeans pants pockets, looking for an I.D. or other clues. He found a key on a keychain, clearly marked with the park's name. "It's from the lodge's hotel." "Then we might be able to have him identified for the doctors even before we arrive at the park hospital." Johnny said. "Call in the room number." Stoker cursed, making them all look up. "Problems?" Gage asked, placing his hands on the man's chest reflexively. "Not with him. Look down there." he said, pointing down to the river from the high point they had found as a refuge. "Whoever this man is, he wasn't alone." "Sh*t." Cap said, rising to his feet. "Marco you're with me. We're going to start a search along both banks of the river." he ordered, snatching up the radio. |
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************************************************** Subject: Awakening.. From: patti k (pattik1@hotmail.com) Sent: Sat 2/28/09 3:20 AM In Bluebird Five, Pilot Ken Baxter heard the rescue call go out for the park's better equipped paramedic chopper. He glanced at Joey Collins, seated in the co-pilot's seat next to him as the dispatcher continued to give details over the scanner channel. ##....Appalachian Central, 240-Robert Air. Single hypothermia victim without apparent trauma reported at Marker 70. Medically trained civilian personnel are at hand and rescue with treatment has been affected. Adult male, early thirties, kayaker. Respond along the river on the bluff 200 feet below the deer camp.## "Somebody's hurt down there?" asked the radio helmeted little boy with worry. Ken smiled. "Yep. But don't you worry about it. We're getting help there faster than you can spit." he said, gripping the flight joystick a little tighter. "240's a bullet in the air when she wants to be. And Morgan's pure ace getting to places." Baxter heard his co-pilot Morgan Wainright respond first, followed by Deputy Paramedics Dwayne Thibideaux and Trap Applegate from their ground SUV. ##240-Robert Air, 10-4. Patching in to that radio's comm frequency, direct.## said Morgan. ##My E.T.A. is four minutes.## Ken heard Trap thumb the mic from the roving sheriff's rescue jeep. ## AP Base, we're doing the same. Copy kayaker in distress, Marker 70. Our E.T.A. is approximately eight minutes.## |
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************************************************** Subject: Calvary Calling... From: patti k (pattik1@hotmail.com) Sent: Mon 3/02/09 1:46 PM Morgan Wainwright keyed up her mic as she flew her chopper at top speed. "240 Robert-Air to Tag 70, what's your patient's status? We are linked to two ground paramedics on their way to you and to our hospital's physician." Running full tilt next to Cap and Marco, Gage took the camp radio Hank handed to him. ## 240 Robert-Air. Critical. ## Johnny reported. ##Vitals are : Pulse is ten and irregular but effective. Respirations were depressed, now being assisted mouth to mouth with pure oxygen. BP's unpalpable due to vasoconstriction in the arms and legs. Severe hypothermia has set in and there's steady excessive urinary output. We found no signs of frostbite. He's been fully immobilized and we've prevented all further heat loss.## ##Tag 70, This is Dr. Almstedt at Appalachia. I copy vitals. Have you any fluid crystalloids handy?## Joanne asked as she studied Paul Carnes and Terri Baxter while she concentrated. ##Negative. We've no I.V.s at all.## Johnny replied. Trap, in the rushing sheriff's rescue jeep, broke into the channel. "Tag 70, 240 Robert Ground. We've plenty warming in the cooker." he said, eyeing up his partner Thib, who was packing four bags of NS into their battery heated insulation packs. "How's his airway doing?" ## We've a working oralpharyngeal. ## said Johnny. ##But we've a new development. There may be a second victim out here.## |
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Paramedics, pilots and park rangers alike, startled and there was a long pause of dead air on the radio. "Where?" asked Morgan, nosing down into the final valley separating them. ##Somewhere upstream of us along the river. Another kayaker.## Gage told them all through the channel. ##We spotted fresh debris that wasn't his a few minutes ago.## "I'll attempt to locate. What's your twenty?" she asked, dipping the helicopter skillfully down low to follow the river course. Hank answered. ##Upstream of the smoke plume at camp, next to a shallow cliff to the west in a beech grove. We're on the same bank, three hundred yards up from there.## Morgan answered. "Watching for you. You listen for me." she said firmly. ##Will do.## said Hank. Back at camp, Roy worked feverishly to keep their patient insulated along every seam. Chet had taken over for Stoker respiratory heating wise and the engineer was actively clearing out loose debris in the meadow to make ready for a helicopter landing. Thinking fast, Mike stabbed four sticks with tied down bright bits of clothing to mark off the combed through square of land. He added a fifth stick in between two others to indicate the direction the wind was blowing into the meadow. Then he hurried back to the others. "LZ's set with a directional, guys. One hundred fifty foot square. There's no soft spots as far as I can tell." Stoker said. "Powerlines?" Roy asked. "None." DeSoto nodded. "We've done all we can for him here. I don't want to disturb his position anymore. Could you help me keep tabs on his pulse?" "Yeah." said Mike, crouching near the man's head to place a light set of fingers over the man's carotid. "What about those?" Stoker asked, pointing to the log bundles they had gathered for building a travois. "Forget about it. The chopper should have its own stokes ready far faster than we can build one." Roy replied as he felt the effectiveness of Kelly's ventilations to the man with a hand on top of the sleeping bags. "Glad they're fast." Mike said, checking to make sure the oxygen supply to Chet's cannula was still delivering. "Me, too." said Chet, taking in another slow breath inside of his jacket to keep his breath warmed up. The wind began to howl in earnest as the feeble heat of the day rose, blowing leaves and sun warmed tufts of grass around them. Then, in the distance, Roy heard the sound of rotor blades. Raising his free hand, he fired off the first of their gun flares out over the river for Johnny and the others to see and take heed. |
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