Three o’clock in the afternoon was a little early in the day for a drug
overdose call, but that was what Station 51 was responding to, when they
pulled into the parking lot of a two story apartment complex. Roy and Johnny
got out of the squad. Johnny tossed his helmet onto the seat and slammed
the door. Roy was already at the bay doors pulling out what he expected to
need. Sadly, OD calls were becoming all too familiar.
The engine was there for extra manpower. The engine crew followed the paramedics
into the courtyard of the complex. The building was U-shaped and there was
a pool in the center of the courtyard. The second floor apartments all had
balconies that overlooked the pool. Their attention was drawn to one of the
balconies. A young woman stood on it. She waved her arms at them frantically.
“Hurry please,” she called to them. “She’s really flipping
out!”
They could see a struggle taking place behind her. A young man was grappling
with another girl, trying to keep her inside the apartment. “Valerie,
will you calm down!” he yelled. He was becoming winded. People
under the influence of some drugs had a lot of strength.
“Leave me alone, Jack! Get out of my life, both of you! I don’t
need any help,” she screamed at him furiously.
They could tell that the situation was desperate. If the strung-out girl
managed to get out onto the balcony she could fall or even knock one of the
others off. “We’re on our way. Which apartment is it?” Captain
Stanley asked, as they all began to run toward the building.
“6B. The door is unlocked,” the girl yelled down to them.
Suddenly Valerie managed to break away from Jack. She vaulted out onto the
balcony. The first girl cowered in fright. Then Valerie saw the firemen hurrying
toward the apartment. This enraged her even more. She picked up an 8 inch
clay pot containing some sort of cactus and hurled it at them.
Johnny never saw it coming.
Chet was a few steps behind him. “Look out!” he yelled. His warning
came too late. The plant crashed down onto Johnny’s head and he crumpled
to the pavement.
Roy, who had been in the lead, spun around when he heard the sound of terra
cotta breaking and the dull thud that followed as Johnny hit the ground.
“Johnny!” he gasped with concern. But Johnny didn’t answer.
He didn’t even move. A look of shocked disbelief came over Roy’s
face but a desperate voice from the balcony reclaimed his attention. He looked
back up. Valerie was now trying to climb over the iron railing. Jack had
both of his arms around her but she was dragging them both toward imminent
danger.
“Help me! I can’t hold her,” Jack called.
Roy was torn but Captain Stanley stepped in. “Go ahead, Pal. Lopez,
Stoker, give him a hand. Chet and I will look after Johnny,” he said
firmly. He pulled his handy talkie out of the pocket of his turn-out coat.
“L A, this is Engine 51. I have a code-I at this location. Do you have
an ambulance en route?”
“Negative, Engine 51. The caller declined an ambulance. Are you requesting
one?”
“That’s affirmative, LA.”
“10-4, Engine 51.”
Captain Stanley broke off the communication and glanced at Chet. He was looking
very pale and he hadn’t moved a muscle since the accident.
“Chet?”
“I.. I knew it was going to hit him. I knew it. But I couldn’t
do anything. It’s like I was frozen. I should have pushed him out of
the way......” Chet said in a quiet voice.
“No way you could have, Pal. It happened too fast,” the captain
told him firmly. He wished he felt as confident as he had forced himself
to sound. He had a cold, hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. Johnny
still hadn’t moved. He’d handled thousands of injuries in his career
but he had never learned how to remain professionally detached when it was
one of his own.
Hank Stanley squatted down next to Johnny. He gently pressed his fingers
to Johnny’s neck. He was relieved to feel a pulse, although it seemed
very rapid.
“He’s really out cold, huh?” Chet remarked, as he, too, bent
over Johnny’s prone form.
Hank assumed it was a rhetorical question. He felt angry that this needless
accident had happened in the first place but he didn’t want to take
it out on Chet. He carefully picked the larger pieces of terra cotta out
of Johnny’s thick, overly long hair. He’d nagged him about it at
roll call that very morning. It just didn’t seem very important at the
moment. He picked up the cactus itself by the roots and tossed it. He
didn’t care that it had landed in the pool. He tried to push as much
of the dirt away as he could. There was a steadily growing puddle of blood
under Johnny’s head. He knew that they should not move him if they could
avoid it. He checked his respirations. He seemed to be having no trouble
breathing so they let him lay there as he had fallen.
Johnny was usually a bundle of nervous energy. It was strange to see him
so still. The plastic cases he had been carrying had both opened when he
dropped them. Hank began picking up some of the things that had spilled out
of one box. Chet went to work on the other.
A crowd of curious onlookers from the apartment complex had gathered.
“Stand back, please,” Hank said. His voice had lost some of its
command quality and he was pretty much ignored.
Suddenly Vince Howard broke through the crowd. “My God, Hank! What
happened?”
“He got beaned with a flower pot,” Hank said with disgust.
“Is he all right?”
“Does he look it?” Chet yelled angrily.
“Easy, Chet. Vince, maybe you ought to go up and give Roy a hand. This
is a drug OD call,” Hank suggested diplomatically. The last thing he
needed was Chet getting himself arrested for some reason.
“Sure thing,” Vince said. The calm tone of his voice assured them
that he had taken no offense. “You folks stand back and give them room
to work. NOW.” Vince’s voice had lost none of its authority.
The crowd stepped back.
Hank was surprised when Roy suddenly appeared and knelt down on the other
side of Johnny. “She refused treatment,” he quickly explained.
“Her father and her family doctor just arrived and she settled right
down. I don’t think they’ll get rid of Vince as easily as they
did us, though. How’s he doing?” Roy asked as he automatically
went about taking vitals, trying to pretend that this was just another victim.
“I’m gonna need a backboard,” he said without looking up.
Marco ran to get one.
“We’ve got an ambulance rolling, Pal,” the captain told him.
“Good. Chet, dig a c-collar out of that case for me, would ya? Cap,
can you get on the horn to Rampart?” Roy forced himself to take control
of the situation. Johnny deserved the same quality of care that everyone
else got, he told himself.
The captain opened up the orange Bio-phone and set up the antenna. He then
picked up the receiver. “Rampart, this is Squad 51, How do you
read?”
“Read you fine, 51. What’ve ya got?” Dr Morton replied.
“Rampart, we have a 24 year old male. He was hit in the head by a potted
plant thrown from a second story balcony. He is comatose and has been for
ten minutes now.” Captain Stanley glanced at his watch. He was trying
to remain cool but it was taking all his will power. “Stand by for
vitals,” he concluded.
Roy gave him the vitals and added that he was diaphoretic and his skin was
clammy to the touch. Although he noted no obvious abnormalities, he applied
a cervical collar and backboard as a precaution.
When the collar was in place they logrolled Johnny onto the backboard. He
moaned quietly when he was moved.
“Johnny?” Roy said hopefully but he was unresponsive.
Roy next went to work on the severe laceration caused by the impact of the
flower pot. Once he was rolled over the wound bled even more freely. Roy
felt like his hands were shaking as he began applying pressure to the stubborn
wound. Several piles of bloodied bandages had been tossed on the ground before
there was any semblance of control of the bleeding but he was finally able
to apply a bandage.
The captain reported everything that was happening to Rampart.
“51, check for any signs of bleeding or fluid in the ears, nose and
mouth,” Dr Morton instructed.
“That’s negative on the ears and nose, Rampart. There is some bleeding
in the mouth but it appears that the patient bit his lip which may account
for it,” the captain repeated what Roy had told him.
Dr Morton asked for a repeat on the vitals.
Roy gave them and added that the pupils were slightly dilated and that there
was no response to verbal or pain stimuli.
“Your patient is definitely in shock, 51, but due to the head wound,
we’ll delay medication. Immobilize patient's head and neck and transport
as soon as possible. Report vitals every five minutes,” Dr Morton
instructed.
“10-4, Rampart. Ambulance is now on scene,” Captain Stanley
acknowledged.
Roy complied with all of Morton’s instructions. He had actually taken
some of the precautions already, but this was one time he preferred to act
like a mindless robot and just do the job. He stood up and Chet, Marco and
the ambulance attendants lifted the backboard onto the gurney.
Roy was desperate to keep busy and began packing up their gear.
“Don’t worry about that, Pal. We’ll get it. You take this
and get Johnny into Rampart,” the cap said, handing him the Biophone.
Marco and Stoker began gathering up the rest of the equipment. No one liked
looking at Johnny strapped to the backboard. They all felt that there should
be something else they could do for him. It seemed to each of them that he
had been unconscious for an awfully long time. They each knew that that was
not a good sign.
Chet was motionless and pale as he watched Roy climb into the ambulance.
The cap slammed the doors shut and banged twice on the back. The ambulance
pulled away but it all seemed somehow unreal to Chet. How could such a senseless,
freaky accident have happened?
“Chet, you wanna follow them in?”
Chet still didn’t move.
“Chet?”
“What? Yeah okay, Cap,” Chet murmured as they brought the equipment
out to the squad and put it away in the bays.
“Chet, you all right to drive?” the cap asked seriously.
“Yeah, sure, Cap,” Chet said in a voice that even he did not recognize
as his. He couldn’t get the picture of Johnny laying on the ground like
a broken doll out of his head. He knew that Johnny was badly hurt. Head injuries
were serious. He might be in a coma for the rest of his life. Or worse. And
all for no reason at all.
Chet climbed into the squad and headed for the hospital. He still felt he
should have been able to do something to prevent it. He’d shouted a
warning but all that had accomplished was to cause Johnny to stop running
and look around. He then took the full force of the blow on top of his head.
Maybe it was his fault that the plant had hit Johnny at all. Chet’s
palms were suddenly sweaty and he felt sick. So sick that he had to pull
over and stop till the feeling passed. He folded his arms across the steering
wheel and rested his head on them. It was then that he spotted Johnny’s
helmet laying on the seat. “Dammit, Johnny,” he yelled angrily.
“Why the hell weren’t you wearing that helmet?”
It seemed to Roy that the ambulance was crawling. He was eager to get Johnny
to Rampart where they could do more for him. For the first time in ages,
Roy felt limited in his ability to help his patient. Patient, he thought,
that’s not some nameless stranger. That’s my partner. He
thought back to the brash kid Johnny had been three years ago when the program
began. He’d ridden in a lot of ambulances since then. They both had.
But this ride was different. He hated feeling so helpless.
He had to do something. He began taking a new set of vitals. As he worked,
he thought that he caught some movement out of the corner of his eye. Had
Johnny moved? Was he coming around? He decided to check his pupils. They
now responded to the light.
“Ahhhh don’t,” Johnny groaned weakly, trying to push his hand
away. “Don’t.”
“Okay, I won’t.” Roy felt it difficult not to shout for joy.
“How ya feeling?”
“I don’t know. W-what happened?” Johnny was fairly lucid for
a guy who’d been out as long as he had been.
“You got crowned with a flower pot.” Roy tried to make light of
it. “How many fingers do you see?” Roy held up two fingers in front
of Johnny’s face.
“I don’t remember that,” Johnny said. He had a look of
concentration on his face as he tried to figure out what had happened.
“You never knew what hit you. Now tell me, how many fingers?”
“Two,” Johnny said with disgust. “Don’t play paramedic
with me. I want to know what’s going on.”
“Humor me.” Roy couldn’t help grinning broadly. He seemed
all right. He really seemed all right. “Follow my finger,” he
instructed as he moved his finger to the left and right in front of
Johnny’s face.
Johnny was able to focus on and follow Roy’s fingers as much as the
cervical collar would allow. Roy continued to take his vitals but was a little
concerned by the fact that Johnny asked twice more what had happened. His
inability to remember was upsetting him. Roy was sure that he had a concussion.
He tried to keep him calm.
“Roy,” he said suddenly,”I don’t feel so good.”
Johnny’s face was flushing wildly as Roy rolled him to one side and
provided a convenience bag.
Roy was very busy for the rest of the trip to the hospital. He was glad when
the ambulance stopped then changed direction. He had the doors opened when
the ambulance stopped again and he and the attendants got the gurney out
and ran into the E.R.
“Room 4,” Dixie said following them in. “Joe Early’s
on his way,” she told Dr. Morton.
“Good. Sounds like this guy’s gonna need a neurologist ---
Johnny? This is who got his lights put out by a flower pot?”
Dr Morton was incredulous. He never knew how close he came to having his
own lights punched out by Roy.
Dr Early joined them at that moment so Roy made his report to him instead.
“He regained consciousness on the way in. He was fairly lucid at first
but has become more and more agitated. He complained of dizziness, headache
and feeling cold. He vomited twice and is experiencing short term memory
loss regarding the event.”
“Nurse,” Dr Morton commanded Carol, “I want another full set
of vitals and let’s get some blood work started.”
“X-ray’s here now, Joe,” Dixie reported as a tech pushed a
portable X-ray machine into the room.
“I want a complete skull series, neck and spine also,” Dr Early
said as he began his exam.
Roy felt like a fifth wheel. Dr Early’s competent presence calmed him
down a little bit. He was glad that Dr Morton had a more experienced man
in the room. Dr Morton could rub people the wrong way and he had done just
that with Roy.
Joe Early was talking to Johnny but he was not responding Dixie could sense
the nervousness and hostility coming from Roy and she thought it would be
better to get him out of there. Emotions were running high in the room. Someone
was liable to go to pieces and that wouldn’t help Johnny a bit.
“Come on, Roy,” Dixie said, slipping her arm through his.
“I’ll let you buy me a cup of coffee.”
“Coffee?! I don’t want any coffee.”
“Well I do,” she said firmly.
Roy got the message. “Am I that obvious?”
“Come on, you need some fresh air. Don’t worry. He’s in good
hands,” she added gently.
Chet was outside the treatment room, pacing nervously. “How is he?”
he demanded.
Chet looked paler than she’d ever seen him. She slipped her other arm
through his. It looked like her day to play nursemaid to a couple of firemen.
It sure looked like they needed it. She was extremely fond of Johnny,
herself.
She walked them into the lounge and sat them down. Then she went over to
the coffee pot and poured three cups. She sat down with them and made them
tell her exactly what had happened. She, too, felt anger and frustration.
“Why wasn’t he wearing his helmet?” she asked out of
curiosity.
“My question exactly!” Chet slammed his fist down on the table
forcefully. He glared at Roy for an explanation.
“I wasn’t wearing mine either,” Roy said in defense of
Johnny’s actions. “They are kind of hot and we always ditch them
as soon as we can tell we won’t need them.” His voice cracked a
little at the end of his sentence. Johnny had certainly needed his, as it
turned out.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Chet said quietly. He hadn’t
meant to take his frustrations out on Roy. He still felt guilty himself.
“I was behind him. I saw it coming but there was nothing I could do.
If only I’d been able to knock him out of the way. Guess if it was
anybody’s fault, it was mine,” he added miserably.
“If it was anybody’s fault,” Dixie corrected him firmly, “it
was the girl that threw the pot.”
“She was so strung out that she didn’t know what she was doing,”
Roy told her. “Guess it was just a freak accident.”
“I don’t buy that, Roy. If people do drugs or drink till they’re
blotto and they hurt someone it is their fault. Chalking it up to
being young and stupid is no answer," Dixie said vehemently.
“So what is the answer, Dix?” Roy mused.
“To the drug problem? Got a few hundred years and I’ll give you
my opinion. But I’m just a nurse. Nobody asks us. Well, my break is
about over. How about if I go find out how he’s doing and get back to
you?” She got up and took her cup over to the sink and washed it out.
Then she left.
“I keep thinking that I should have been able to do something....shove
him out of the way somehow,” Chet said. His anger and frustration surfacing
once more.
“Don’t go there, Chet. What ifs’ll eat you alive. What if
you had been closer and shoved him aside, what if he’d been wearing
the helmet, what if a nice girl had never felt the need to load up her system
with dope in the first place....” Roy sighed and got up and got some
more coffee.
“Why did she do it?”
“Who knows?” Roy shrugged. He wondered if drugs were the real problem
or just the symptom of some bigger problem. He was glad he didn't have to
grow up now and he wondered what it would be like for his own kids.
They both sat in thoughtful solitude until Dixie and Dr Early came into the
lounge. Chet and Roy looked at them expectantly.
Dixie headed for the coffee pot while Joe went and sat down with Chet and
Roy.
“How is he, Doc?” Roy demanded.
“Cranky,” Dixie answered as she joined them. She set one cup of
coffee down in front of Joe and sipped on the other.
“You mean combative?” Roy gasped, knowing that to be a sign of
a serious head wound. He was worried about swelling or bleeding into the
brain.
“No. I mean just plain POed,” Dixie said bluntly. “Joe told
him he has to stay for observation and he objected. Needless to say he was
overruled.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Chet asked.
“The miraculous thing is what isn’t wrong with him. No skull fractures.
No fractures of any kind actually. He does have a mild concussion, to say
nothing of 15 sutures in his head and 4 in his lip but by and large, it looks
like that Gage luck is still holding out,” Dr Early smiled.
“Not to hear him tell it,” Dixie pointed out. “To him, he’s
being held prisoner against his will.”
“Can we see him?” Roy asked.
“They’re getting him admitted. I told them to give us a buzz down
here when he was settled in.”
“He’s really all right?” Chet still couldn’t believe
it.
“He has a doozy of a headache. He’ll probably be even sorer in
the morning but I’d say the long term prognosis was excellent. Providing
the floor nurses don’t kill him, that is,” Joe laughed.
“I wasn’t worried a bit,” Chet declared suddenly.
“No, not much,” Dixie laughed. “It looked to me that you were
pretty concerned, Chet Kelly!”
“Only that I might have to break in a new pidgeon,” Chet
insisted.
Roy shook his head in disbelief at Chet’s blatant lie and at the whole
situation in general. The phone on the wall by the door rang and Dixie went
to answer it. “Room 606 but don’t stay very long. They’ll
be serving dinner soon and they have a schedule to keep.”
* * * * *
Johnny appeared to be asleep when they went in. There was a large bandage
on his forehead and a Band-Aid on his lip. His left eye was very swollen
and purple. He looked very pale. There was an IV in his hand. All of the
jokes that Chet had thought of on the way up to the room completely slipped
his mind now.
Johnny opened his eyes and looked at them angrily.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Chet said lamely.
“Living?! You call this living?!” Johnny grouched. “I don’t
even know what I’m doing here.”
“Driving the staff crazy, according to Dixie,” Roy smiled.
“Oh, is that right? Well, if they’d just let me go back to work
like I wanted that wouldn’t be happening, would it?” Johnny fired
back.
“Johnny! You got a crack on the head that put you in lala land,
there’s no way they’d let you work like that!” Chet was
amazed.
“Why not? They let you work like that all the time,” Johnny
retorted.
Chet’s mouth dropped open and he blinked in shock. Had Gage made a joke
at his expense?
Roy decided he’d better cut the visit short before an all out war could
erupt. “Well, we have to get back. We just wanted to see if you needed
anything. Magazines? Something like that.”
“I just need to get out of here. I don’t need any magazines and
I sure don’t need any flowers,” Johnny laughed in spite
of the stitches in his lip.
Roy and Chet had to laugh too.
“If you’re good, they’ll let you out tomorrow,” Roy
promised.
“Let’s get back to work, Roy. I don’t know how we’re
going to explain to the guys that Gage has yet another hole in his head,”
Chet said, heading for the door.
“I heard that, Kelly,” Johnny called after them as they left the
room.
Roy just shook his head. Johnny and Chet were fighting. Things were getting
back to normal already.
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