Enough Blame To Go Around
by Jane Woods

Marco was swearing softly in Spanish. This always happened every year at this time. It was like plague. When he first started in the Department he used to arrange to have his vacation time during allergy season. Then it dawned on him that he was wasting his vacation being sick. He had taken some over the counter allergy pills that had helped with his constant sneezing and itchy eyes and Chet's constant razzing him about crying, but his nose was still giving him fits. It was either running or stuffed up.

Annual plague, he repeated to himself but it was not the only annual plague endured by Station 51 and the other one was almost worst. The annual visit of the cap's Mother-In -Law. She made the cap, who was normally a nice, even-tempered guy, into something that the Nazis would have been proud to call one of their own. The slightest little thing could set him off. It was worse than the way he was around McConnike.

So today, of all days, his chili casserole had to practically explode inside the oven. They'd been out to a brush fire. He had turned the oven down real low so they'd have a nice lunch to come back to but instead -- disaster! Now this gunk had really baked on. He was tempted to go home sick. Sure rats were rats for crawling off of sinking ships but at least they survived. He'd already finished cleaning up all the dishes and other remnants of what the cap had called his fiasco. It wasn't a fiasco. It still tasted alright. He opened the oven door.

Oh man! What a mess!

He went over to the cabinet under the sink in search of oven cleaner. He was not nuts about that stuff. It was toxic as hell and he really wasn't exactly sure how to use it. Cleaning ovens was not exactly a skill he'd learned at his mother's knee. Even if he had it would not have included the use of commercial oven cleaner -- she wouldn't allow the stuff in the house.

He pulled out the racks and ran hot water in the sink. It would take more that just soaking in soapy water. He looked in the cabinet for an idea. He spotted a large bottle of vinegar. His mother swore by the stuff so he poured a generous amount into the hot water in the sink.

Then he grabbed a can of oven cleaner and went back over to major problem at hand. The directions on the can were vague. He decided to just spray the stuff on and hope for the best. He pressed down the spray mechanism. It was hard to push. Finally a small amount of white foam came out of the can. When this happened to his shaving creme it meant he was almost all out.

"OH CRAP!!!" he yelled, even though he knew that he could be understood by anyone who came into the kitchen. Swearing in Spanish was much safer. He fiddled with the can and forced four more small dollups of foam from the can. "That's not even going to touch that mess." He went back to the cabinet under the sink. He found a wire brush. This had some promise.

He took the oven door off and climbed up on a chair so he could really get into the oven and scrub it. Maybe if he used enough elbow grease he could get the job done anyway. What choice did he have? If he didn't get the oven spotless the cap threatened to hang him from the hose tower by his toenails. No, he shuddered, not his toenails, something he valued even more. Since his mother had her heart set on him giving her grandchildren one day he'd better get this damn oven clean.

He was head and shoulders into the oven for twenty minutes and he'd barely made a dent in the baked on, gooey mess. He'd gotten the larger hunks off but burned nacho cheese and sause were still stuck firmly to the walls of the oven. The last of the foam had long since fizzled out.

Back he went to the cabinet under the sink. Comet, he thought, that stuff will break through the mess. He'd used it on pans before. He grabbed a steel wool pad and the comet. Strangely, he had to grab onto the side of the sink when he stood up. He felt momentarily light-headed. His head cleared in a few seconds. Damn allergies! Damn allergy medicine. Non-drowsy formula, my ass!

He got back up on his chair and stuck his head into the oven again. It was hard work but the Comet did seem to be making some headway. He was actually beginning see the walls of the oven in a few places. He made another trip to the sink for a large bowl of water to help rinse some of the mess away. Since he was now making headway he was determined to beat the mess. He scrubbed for another thirty minutes. Finally the last of the gunk had been loosened. A sponge was helping to wipe it all away. He was really feeling really hot by this time. God! This was hard work. He'd rather face a fire. Why the hell didn't the alarm go off when you wanted it to?

The Comet had gotten off that mess but the oven was far from spotless, in fact it was now so streaky and gritty that Marco was begining to wonder if the cap was really pissed off enough at the world to make good on his earlier threat. He decided he didn't want to find out so he went looking for something to clean this new mess up with. He tried several things, baking soda, dish soap, hot water, cold water. Nothing helped. Then his eyes fell on the open bottle of vinegar on the counter. Now he was glad his nose was stuffed up, the smell of vinegar nauseated him. But his mother cleaned everything with it. What did he have to lose?

He brought the bottle over and dumped a generous amount into the plastic bowl of water he was cleaning with. He had no idea how much to use but if a little was good a lot was better. His eyes were starting to water again. Probably time for another allergy pill but he'd better finish this first. Besides he was starting to feel a little dizzy, maybe he'd better slack off those pills. The water sloshed out of the bowl and onto his shirt as he climbed back up onto the chair. He ignored it. He ignored everything and concentrated on the cleaning the oven. His eyes were watering. He was coughing. He was occasionally feeling light-headed. He was going to clean this damn oven if it killed him!

The cap had been in a terrible mood all day. Stoker suspected that Gage and DeSoto were hanging out at Rampart as much as they could just to avoid him. Mike straightened up from the squatting position he had been in while he polished the chrome on the engine. The captain had said he wanted it to shine and today was not a day to do anything but exactly what the captain said. He stretched. His muscles were sore and he was thirsty. Marco had made his famous chili casserole for lunch and it always made him thirsty for the rest of the day. Marco called him a hopeless WASP. That casserole had gotten Marco in big trouble today, though. It had bubbled over and the cap had had a cow at the mess it had made in the oven. Poor Marco had not only had he been assigned all the regular KP chores, he was given real clear instructions about making that oven spotless.

Mike wondered if he dared sneak into the kitchen and grab a drink of water from the chilled stuff in the fridge or if he should just run into the bathroom and get a drink there. Surely the cap would allow them to go to the bathroom. But if he went there he'd probably run into Chet. Chet had drawn latrine duty and would be complaining up a storm. The sound of a crash from the kitchen made up his mind for him. If Marco was mad enough to be throwing things around, he and the cap might get into it. Marco could be teased out of his anger. All a person had to do was call him ‘Rosita' and he usually came around. Too bad the cap's mood wasn't so easy to fix. He got by the door to the cap's office as quickly as he could and hoped that he hadn't been seen.

The first thing he noticed that was out of place was that one of the kitchen chairs was overturned. The second was the strange smell that was in the air. He couldn't place it but it made his eyes water and his throat feel like it was closing down. He suddenly realized he couldn't breathe. Something toxic was in the air! He ran over to the back door and yanked it open. He gulped in some fresh air. His next thought was to get some fans going and move that air out. He turned back toward the garage when he noticed Marco laying on the floor. "Oh shit!" He had no idea how long he'd been down or how much of the stuff he'd breathed in. He didn't take the time to check him he just picked him up and carried him to the garage. Both sets of doors were open. The air would be okay in there. "CHET! CAP!" he called frantically as he gently lowered Marco to the floor.

The cap came out of his office with a murderous look on his face but it changed immediately when he caught sight of Marco on the ground. He was extremely pale and his lips had a bluish cast to them.

"He's not breathing," Mike said. He automatically tilted Marco's head back and began mouth-to-mouth. Chet arrived on the scene and after checking his pulse started CPR.

Hank Stanley felt frozen for a moment while he tried to comprehend what was happening. A minute ago his biggest problem was his visiting mother-in-law. Now he was staring at the lifeless body of one of his men while two others worked feverishly to save him. He snapped out of it and ran to the radio. "LA, this is Station 51. We have a still alarm at the Station. We have a fireman down and request response of the closest squad and also an ambulance to our location." He prayed to God that the ambulance would be needed and not a coroner's wagon. He jammed the mic back on it stand and ran to the bay on the engine that held the O2 tanks. They didn't have everything Marco would need. Where the hell was that squad? They hadn't had a run since before lunch at which time they had reported 10-8 to Rampart for supplies.

He couldn't worry about that at the moment. He started setting up to give Marco O2 if they could get him breathing. They really needed a resuscitator. When he got close to Marco something assaulted his eyes and nose. "What is that smell?"

"Don't know the kitchen is full of it," Mike panted.

He relieved Mike to let him catch his breath. As soon as Mike had caught his breath, he relieved Chet to give him a rest. They didn't know how long the three of them would have to do this to keep Marco alive but they were prepared to continue for as long as it took.

At Rampart, Roy and Johnny had let themselves be conned into helping out when a tour bus had pulled in full of tourists who had come down with some form of food poisoning. They kept the HT on to monitor calls and remained on alert duty status. They heard dispatch send Squad 18 to their station for a man down call.

"Wonder what happened?" Johnny asked. He and Roy were taking a break now that most of the people had been treated.

"Why don't we head back and find out?" Roy tried not let Johnny in on nervous feeling he suddenly had. "You need us any more, Dix?"

"No, go ahead, fellas, and thanks," she said finally getting her paperwork in order.

"Any time, Dix," Johnny called as he and Roy walked out to their squad "Especially any time the cap's mother-in-law is visiting," he added with a laugh as he got into the squad. He thought it odd that Roy didn't respond. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Roy tried to shake off the feeling he had and started the squad.

Squad 18 screeched to a halt in the driveway of Station 51. They had a man down call but no more information than that. They grabbed the usual initial response equipment and ran into the station. Cassie relieved Chet on chest compressions and Mike relived the cap.

"What happened, Captain?" Pidge asked in a business-like manner.

"He was overcome by something he was using to clean the oven," the cap panted helping her set up the resuscitator. They had figured that much out as they compared notes while they worked on him.

Cassie leaned down and sniffed his shirt. "He still reeks of something. Is that ammonia? That can't be helping. Let's cut his clothes off."

Mike signaled her that he would take over chest compressions so she slid the scissors out of her holster and started cutting away Marco's uniform. "He's real pale and his skin is dry. He is cyanotic," Cassie reported as she began taking vitals.

Pidge set up the biophone and got the EKG equipment ready while she called the hospital, "Rampart, this is Squad 18. How do you read?"

"We read you fine, 18. Go ahead," Dixie responded.

"Rampart, we have a male patient approximately...

"27," Chet supplied.

"Twenty seven years of age. He was overcome by fumes while cleaning an oven. Patient appears to be in full arrest. He is not breathing and there is no pulse rate. CPR and oxygen are being administered. Please hold for strip," Pidge said. Pidge was a former cardiac care nurse and was as capable of interpreting what she was seeing as the doctor. She readied the paddles to defribulate the patient.

"Your patient is in full arrest, 18. Go ahead and defribulate," Brackett confirmed Pidge's diagnosis.

She was ready with the paddles and they were already jelled and charged. "Clear," she called.

Everyone sat back. The men from 51 flinched when Marco was shocked. They could each almost feel the violent electrical shock that was administered to their friend. This was not some unknown victim. This was one of them. Marco's inert body jumped but his heart did not start.

"No conversion, Rampart," Cassie reported. She had taken over the biophone.

Chet jumped back in to continue CPR. He tried to ignore the deep red burn marks already appearing on Marco's chest and the paddle gel that made him slightly slippery and made doing CPR more difficult.

"Zap him again," Brackett ordered.

Again Pidge had anticipated and was ready. The machine had been recharged and the paddles rejelled. Again the men seemed to feel the jolt along with him. All eyes were glued to the monitor.

"Sinus rythum," Cassie reported with delight.

Rampart ordered IVs and intubation. The firemen tried to help wherever they could but the paramedics were used to working together and anticipated each other's moves.

Cassie spoke to him while she tubed him in case he could hear her. Pidge handled the IVs and he was ready to transport when the ambulance arrived.

They were just loading him in when Squad 51 arrived. They had been slowed down by some unscheduled road construction.

"What the hell happened?" Johnny gasped seeing Marco being loaded into the ambulance.

"Where the hell where you guys?!!" Chet exploded. "He was in full arrest. He needed you!"

"What happened?" Roy repeated Johnny's question to Mike.

Mike just narrowed his eyes at him and muttered something under his breath and went to get the large fans set up to ventilate the kitchen.

"Full arrest? How? What happened?" Johnny was frustrated.

"Maybe if you guys were here where you should have been instead of screwing around at Rampart it would have never come to this. If he doesn't make it, it's your fault!" Chet screamed "And I'll never let you forget it!!!!"

The cap had gone into his office as soon as the ambulance pulled away. He came back out when he heard the shouting. "That's enough, Kelly. A haz mat team is on its way. Until we hear otherwise the Station has been declared unsafe. We are to evacuate immediately. Those who chose to can take the rest of the day off. If you'd prefer to work LA will reassign you for the rest of the shift. Once the station is secured I'm on my way to Rampart. When I know Marco's condition, I'll have to notify his family," the cap said stonily.

"Cap," Johnny began frantically, "please tell us what happened."

"Gage, I really don't feel like it at the moment. Frankly, I find myself in complete agreement with Chet. If you don't have some really good excuse as to why you were not in quarters there's a very real likelihood that you'll both be written up for it. Should Marco not survive, I believe that could be grounds for dismissal." He walked past them like they weren't there. "Kelly, Stoker, let's get this station secured and get the hell out of here."

They all ended up at Rampart but they were definitely in two separate groups. All the information they could get was that he was in treatment room three and that the doctors were still with him.

Roy and Johnny saw Pidge near the supply closet and cornered her. "How is he?"Roy asked.

"It's too soon to tell." Pidge had been hospital-trained to be noncommittal with authority.

"What happened anyway?" Johnny demanded.

She could see he was on the brink of tears. "Apparently the victim was cleaning the oven and he was overcome by fumes."

"Cleaning the oven?!" Johnny couldn't believe it.

"How was he when you got there?" Roy demanded.

"He was in full arrest and receiving CPR and artificial resuscitation. Everything that could be done was being done," she tried to assure him.

"Not everything," Johnny smashed his fist into the wall. "Not by a long shot! If he'd had a squad right there instead of having to wait for one-- God, Roy! Chet's right. It is our fault!"

"Johnny ---" Roy began but his partner walked down the hall. He kicked a trash can for good measure and disappeared around the corner. Roy wanted to follow him but he didn't know what to say to him. The inescapable fact was that Marco had had to wait for help that should have been right there.

Cassie had been tied up in the treatment room while they tried to find a Spanish speaking nurse to relieve her. Although he was not fully conscious but he did respond somewhat to his native tongue.

Finally she emerged and the rest of Station 51's crew surrounded her. "How is he?" they demanded.

"Well, he's breathing on his own. They're getting his lungs cleaned out. His pulse is strong. He's hanging in there," she said honestly.

"Is he awake?" the cap asked.

"He's pretty much in and out. He's not making much sense. He kept saying ‘not clean enough' They are waiting on more test results. So they may know more soon. Sorry, Cap, that's all I know."

"Thanks, Cassie," Stanley said stonily. "I - ah - I guess I should call his family."

"They are already on their way, Cap. Father Fuentes will meet them outside the chapel."

"I should be there too. How the hell do I explain this? A fire I could explain but this...this should have never happened." The cap walked off sadly.

"You guys okay?" Cassie asked putting her hand on Chet's arm supportively. "You need anything?"

They both shook their heads. They didn't want to talk. She slipped away and joined Pidge by the nurses' station. "There's more to this than meets the eye," Cassie said.

"There's enough tension among those guys to cut with a knife. Everyone's blaming the paramedics for not being there -- including the paramedics," Pidge told her.

"Why weren't they there?"

"I don't think any one thought to ask," Pidge said as they picked up their gear and left.

Roy had found Johnny and they were sitting together in the doctors' lounge. Neither had much to say. Roy was considering calling Joanne but it hadn't gotten past the thinking stage.

"The cap's right, you know?" Johnny finally said.

"About what?" Roy hardly trusted his voice.

"If -- if the worst happens we will be held accountable for not being in quarters. We - we should have been there."

"Johnny, we had no way of knowing something like this would happen."

"We didn't need to know. It was our duty to be where LA assigned us to be. If we had ---"

"If we had things might not have been any different."

"That's a lie and you know it!"

"No, I don't, Johnny, and neither do you. All we can do is sit and wait. Marco is in good hands--"

"Don't give me that, Roy. We should have been there and that's all there was to it and now because of us, Marco could be dying and you say all we can do is wait. That's not good enough, Roy. Not nearly good enough. I don't even care that we could both get canned. I figure we probably deserve it. But Marco, man Marco did not deserve this..." he turned away quickly but not quickly enough. He was losing it and he knew Roy knew he was losing it.

Roy didn't say anything. He just let him rant. He was feeling the very same things but Johnny was the one that needed to vent.

"We let him down, Roy," Johnny said in a quiet voice. "He needed our help and we weren't there."

Roy just swallowed and looked down at the table. He had been trying to convince himself that Johnny was wrong but he couldn't.

Dixie had been given orders to round up the firemen and bring them to the lounge so that Dr Brackett could talk to them. She herded the captain, Chet and Stoker into the room and noticed that they instinctively went to the opposite side of the room than Roy and Johnny were on.

"Hey, what is this a seventh grade dance?" she asked jokingly.

None of the men had anything to say. They all looked like hell.

"All right, what's going on?" she asked.

Before anyone could confess Dr Brackett came in and went over to the coffee pot. None of the firemen dared say a word. They just looked at him anxiously.

"Joe Early is going to talk to Marco's family. His Spanish is better than mine---"

"No!" Chet gasped not caring that his eyes were tearing over.

Brackett was tired and tempted to make a cheap joke but one look at these men told him that that would be too cruel. "He's out of the woods. He's stable. He's breathing on his own. All his blood gasses are returning to normal."

"He's gonna be all right?" the cap asked.

"For awhile." Brackett took a sip of his coffee.

"For awhile?" Johnny was confused.

"Once he gets back on his feet a little, Nurse McCall is going to give him a stern lecture on the basic chemistry of household products."

They still looked stunned and confused.

"It's no wonder he collapsed. In addition to some obvious self-medicating with antihistamines, we found traces of more bad combinations of chemicals than you can shake a stick at. First off it appears he breathed in some of the chemicals that are found in commercial oven cleaning products. That alone might have caused him to have a headache maybe some nausea but his system would have probably tolerated it. For some unknown reason her felt the need to also use bleach, baking soda, and of course, the piece de resistance -- ammonia!"

"Marco would have known better than to mix bleach and ammonia," Chet vowed.

"Well, he may not have been thinking too clearly after awhile after breathing all that in, combined with medication," Brackett ceded.

"And he may not have known what he was mixing," Mike admitted miserably. "I dropped the ammonia last shift. The bottle split so I just poured it into an empty bottle. I think it was a vinegar bottle but I wrote it on the label. Even if he hadn't noticed that, shouldn't he have smelled the difference."

"Marco can't smell anything right now because of his allergies. I ought to know, I've been giving him a hard enough time about it," Chet commented remorsefully.

"God! I never thought of that! This whole mess is my fault!" Mike gasped.

"No it wasn't, Pal." the cap said miserably. "If I hadn't been acting like such an old bear, Marco would have never been that fussy with that oven."

"Well he might not have had to be if I hadn't doctored up his casserole a little when he got a phone call," Chet admitted.

"What did you do?" the cap asked.

"I just doubled up on some of the ingredients. It didn't look like very much and I was hungry and I sort of thought that if the cap got a good meal under his belt he might feel a little less....."

"Cranky?" Dix asked, "Roy and Johnny said you were as cranky as a bear today."

"DIX!" Johnny yelped. All eyes fell on the paramedics.

"Well, it looks like there's enough blame to go around here," Dix concluded.

"Not for Roy and Johnny," Chet said snidely. "They weren't even there."

"So that's what this is all about. You figure that this is somehow their fault."

"Marco shouldn't have had to wait for a squad. One should have been right there!" Chet vowed. "I mean we had to put up with the cap why should they get to hang around here and---"

"Now, wait a darn minute here. They were here because I asked them to stay and help out. We had 52 sick people land on our doorstep at once in addition to three separate broken bones and a squad brought in a kid suffering a severe asthma attack. The other squad stayed and helped too. They both had their radios on and were ready to fly if they got a call while the rest of you firemen tended to your vital housework!!" Dix was up on her high horse and there was no getting her down. No one was going to accuse her paramedics of goofing off while they were doing her a favor.

The three firemen looked properly chastised. No one dared speak for a moment till Brackett finally spoke up. "It might actually be just as well Roy and Johnny weren't available. Liz Pigeon was a cardiac specialty nurse for five years before she became a paramedic. She was here for three years and for two years before that she was in Viet Nam. She may have more experience with this type of situation than any one else in the field. No offense, fellas, but if I ever find myself in cardiac trouble and in need of a paramedic. Liz would be the one I'd call. I really think that Marco got the best care available."

They all let that set in. It was a little hard for Roy and Johnny to swallow gracefully but they supposed that the really important thing was that Marco was going to pull through.

"Can we see him?" Johnny asked.

"Not tonight. He's still pretty groggy and I think he's way over his visitor limit with just immediate family. Why don't you guys come back tomorrow?"

"Okay, Doc. Thanks," Roy said.

Dixie and Dr Brackett left.

The firemen tried to avoid eye contact with one another for a few minutes. Most of them had said things they wished they could take back.

"Roy, John," the cap began, "I'd like to apologize for the way I acted at the station."

"No problem, Cap," Johnny said miserably, "To tell you the truth before that bus got here we were sort of trying to -- ah avoid going back to the station."

"Hey, at least you guys had someplace to go. We were stuck there ----" Chet realized he may have said too much.

The cap glared at him a minute then said, "I guess I can't really blame anyone for trying to avoid me. I mean that's the way I feel about my lovely mother-in-law who is visiting at the moment."

"That settles it then," Chet said. "It's all the cap's mother-in-law's fault."

The next day they were all visiting Marco's room. It was so full of flowers, cards and balloons that Marco was almost hard to find. They joked around for a while then Marco said,"I'm really sorry to have caused all this trouble. I'm still not sure exactly what happened. The oven cleaner was almost gone and it didn't really do the trick. So I tried scrubbing it with soap and water then baking soda. I had pretty good luck with Comet but it left everything all gritty. Then I remembered my mother swears by vinegar so I dumped that into the water --"

"Marco, it wasn't vinegar. I put ammonia in the vinegar bottle," Mike confessed.

"No! I would have smelled it."

"Not during allergy season, Pal," Chet reminded him.

"Oh yeah. I was even feeling grateful for that since the smell of vinegar make me sick. That's why I didn't smell the ammonia. Hey! There's bleach in Comet isn't there?" he asked meekly.

They all nodded.

"What an IDIOT I am!!!" he slapped his forehead. "This is all my own stupid fault!!"

"Hey, hey," Chet put in, "We were already decided it was all the cap's mother-in-law's fault."

They were all sharing a well deserved laugh when Cassie stuck her head in the door. "Hey, Marco, como es usted?"

"I'm much better. Thanks."

"Glad to hear it. Guys, Dr Brackett wanted me to remind you -- paramedic meeting in 15 minutes."

Both Roy and Johnny had lost track of the time.

"Um, I wanted to thank you. They tell me I owe you my life," Marco said seriously.

"Hey, not me. My hotshot partner. She did all the complicated medical stuff. We were have an agreement. She gets to do all the fancy cardiac stuff and I get to cut the clothes off of all the cute guys."

"You get to what?! You didn't! She didn't, did she, Cap?"