Between A Rock And A Hard Place

It took the rescuers fifteen minutes to rendezvous with the Sheriff Department deputy, who was to guide them to the site of the accident.

Another twenty minutes of white-knuckled driving, and the firemen finally reached the spot where the vehicle had—reportedly—left the ridiculously narrow, twisting, dirt roadway and plunged over a precipice.

Ropes were secured to the tow hooks on Big Red’s front bumper and leather lifebelts were donned.

The lifelines were manned and paramedic, John Gage, began rappelling down the treacherously steep cliff, following the same course the falling car had taken.

The falling vehicle had finally come to rest in the thick underbrush, two hundred and some feet below the roadway.

A middle-aged man was standing just outside of it, holding onto his open car door, apparently, for support.

Gage didn’t know what he found more surprising, the fact that the accident victim was able to stand…or that the man had been able to open his crumpled car door. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

The paramedic slid to a stop beside the dazed-looking guy, detached himself from his lifeline, and poked his helmeted head into the vehicle. The overwhelming smell of ‘booze’ just about took his breath away. “Was anyone else in the car with you?” he anxiously inquired.

“I…don’tthinkso,” the inebriated fellow repeated. “Why-y? Was there-there supposedtobe?”

Gage disguised his disgust and slipped the long, leather shoulder strap of his handy-talky over his helmeted head. He removed his gloves, raised the handheld radio to his tightly pursed lips and thumbed its call button. “Engine 51, this is HT 51. We have one victim: a middle-aged man. Victim believes he is uninjured. Cap, you can hold off on the equipment. I, uh, think we better make this a ‘grab and go’. Aside from being primo rattler terrain, when the car came down, it must a’ destabilized this entire hillside, because we got a lot a’ little landslides goin’ on down here. If some of the bigger boulders break free and start rollin’, it could get real ‘interesting’ in a hurry...”

“HT 51, Engine 51. 10-4,” his Captain acknowledged. “We’re sending down ‘just’ the Stokes. Will you be needing any assistance in getting the victim loaded?”

Gage fought back a grin. "Negative, Cap," the paramedic soberly replied. “The victim is…‘somewhat’ mobile. Roy can just stay put. I’ll do an IPS on him while I’m waiting for the Stokes. Roy can check the guy’s vitals again, when he gets topside. Oh…and it may interest the Sheriff’s deputy to know that the inside of the car smells like a distillery…”

“I’ll be sure to pass that particular bit of information along. Engine 51 out.”

The man gazed at his surroundings, looking more than a little mystified. “Where am I…an-anyways? Is this V-V-Van Nuys?”

The paramedic backed off a bit from his victim’s whiskey breath and stared at the guy in disbelief. “You’re standing at the bottom of a two-hundred-foot cliff, in San Dimas Canyon. My name is John Gage. Can you tell me who you are?”

“Pete—Pete Turner,” the man proudly replied. “San Dimas Canyon? How the hell did I get he-ere?”

The fireman was certain it was with the help of a Mister ‘Jack Daniels’. “Mr. Turner, I’m a fireman/paramedic with Los Angeles County, and I’m just going to check you out here. Okay?” His victim didn’t protest, so he sat the groggy guy down on the front seat of his car and began his initial patient survey.

The paramedic completed his initial physical assessment of their accident victim.

The descending Stokes was causing more loose gravel and stones to come cascading down the side of the exposed precipice.

The fireman crossed over to where the Stokes' dropped line had landed, latched onto it and then used it to guide the stretcher down to their victim’s precise position.

“All right, now, Mr. Turner, the fire department is going to give you a free ride—topside.” Gage pulled his patient back up onto his unsteady feet. “If I can just get you to lie down in this basket, here, for me…I’ll get you all strapped in, so you won’t fall out, and you’ll be right back up on the road again, before you know it.”

The booze-befuddled fellow glanced around for a few moments and then let out a ridiculously loud belch. “What…what roa-oad?”

Once more, the fireman did a masterful job of concealing his disdain. “You’ll see,” the paramedic simply predicted.

Gage got the ‘victim’ safely stowed away in the Stokes and then slid his radio’s strap from his shoulder. “HT 51 to Engine 51. Patient is ready to transport…”

The rescuer slung the radio’s strap back over his shoulder, re-donned his leather gloves and grabbed the stretcher’s guideline.

The bottom of the Stokes’ began scraping its way up the steep hillside, causing more loose rocks and gravel to come cascading down upon its anchorman.

John wrapped the stretcher’s guideline around his waist and leaned his full weight back into the rope. His action had the desired result.

The Stokes raised up off the ground just enough to slow the production of all those little loose rock avalanches.

It took an interminably long time for the Stokes to reach the top of the 200-foot cliff.

The rescuer released the stretcher’s guideline and was just about to reattach himself to his own lifeline, when he heard an all too familiar ‘rattle’. The paramedic promptly froze. Without moving his head, or any other muscle, in the slightest, the fireman forced himself to chance a sideways glance in the direction of the extremely ominous sound.

There, on the gravelly ground between the open car door and his left pant leg, was the largest California rattler Gage had ever seen. The ‘all riled up’ reptile had apparently slithered out from under the wrecked vehicle and was now all coiled up—and all too ready to strike!

Why did stupid people have to go around ‘pissing off’ poisonous snakes—and why did he have be the one on the ‘receiving end’ of their wrath?

‘Maybe…if I just stay really really still…it will just ‘slither away’?’ he silently hoped.

Lopez and Kelly carried the retrieved stretcher away from the edge of the cliff and set it down on the ground behind Squad 51.

“Hi there,” Roy DeSoto forced a smile and immediately dropped to a knee beside the body in the Stokes. The paramedic removed and read the little note his partner had placed in their patient’s front shirt pocket for him. He saw the warning—about the guy’s 90-proof breath—and suppressed a genuine smile. “My name is Roy DeSoto. I’m a paramedic with Los Angeles County. Is it okay, if I check you out here, Mr. Turner?”

“Suit yourself,” Pete told him. “Say, can I get outta this basket? I really gotta pee…ba-ad!”

Roy had everything he could do to keep himself from rolling his eyes. “How about, you just lie still, until I check you out,” he urged. “And, if everything checks out okay, we’ll see what we can do about…that.”

Chet and Marco had returned to the front of Engine 51, and were all set to man Gage’s lifeline.

Kelly stared down into the canyon and watched in confusion, as John Gage suddenly turned himself into a statue. The baffled fireman continued to watch his frozen friend, until an even more alarming sight caught his attention.

Dragging the Stokes back up over the narrow, dirt roadway’s crumbling embankment had caused a small trickle of stones to start dancing down the side of the cliff.

By the time these stones had reached the midway point, that small trickle had turned into a torrent.

“Somethin’s goin’ on with John!” Chet reported. “The hillside’s movin’—and he ain’t!”

The Captain’s face filled with alarm and he aimed his deeply concerned gaze down into the canyon.

That torrent had now been transformed into a raging river of sliding rocks and gravel, and it all was heading straight for their frozen, right-in-mid-motion, friend.

The Captain immediately raised his radio to his frowning lips and pressed send. “Get out of the way, Gage!…I said MOVE, Mister!”

John’s eyes had been tracking the rockslide’s development. Via his own HT, he heard his Captain’s shouted order for him to MOVE! ‘Oh shit!’ he silently repeated, for the second time in as many minutes.

But they were nothing compared to the intense agony that last snakebite had inflicted upon him.

The trapped fireman determined that he would rather face the falling rocks, than the rattler’s venomous fangs, and remained perfectly frozen in place…while a quarter of the rocky hillside came crashing down upon his extremely hazardous position.

“Ga-age! Get the hell out of the way!” his Captain frantically repeated, over his handheld radio’s speaker—and the ridiculously loud rumbling of tumbling boulders and churning gravel.

But ‘Ga-age’ continued to blatantly disobey his boss’ direct order—and held his ground.

That is, until the first hard wave of rock and gravel slammed into the fireman’s locked legs and swept him completely off of his firmly planted feet.

“OW-OW!” the paramedic involuntarily cried out, as a sizable boulder suddenly made contact with his right shinbone. The fireman immediately found himself on his back and upside-down. Gage got caught up in the avalanche of loose rocks and gravel and was bulldozed backwards through the thick underbrush—and out of sight.

51’s Captain watched helplessly as the rapidly moving pile of rocks and gravel plowed right into his junior paramedic, bowled him over backwards, and then swept him, and the crumpled car, clean out of view. Hank Stanley swore beneath his breath and immediately re-thumbed the transmit button on his HT. “L.A., Engine 51. We have a Code I. Request another ambulance and additional manpower at this location…”

The Captain turned to his engineer. “Mike, move the Engine back about thirty feet!”

Stoker nodded and immediately began removing Gage’s lifeline from one of the firetruck’s front tow hooks.

“Marco! Chet! Grab some belts,” the fire officer further commanded. “You’re going down!”

“Aye, aye, Cap!” Lopez and Kelly simultaneously replied and went racing over to the compartment containing their ‘high’ rescue gear.

Roy DeSoto fought desperately to remain fully focussed on his current patient’s condition.

At the moment, the worried fireman was far more concerned about his partner’s fate.

The roiling river of moving rock and gravel finally came to rest, a good fifty feet further down the brush-covered slope of the canyon.

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” Gage managed to get out between gasped breaths. His brain was being bombarded with so many pain messages its poor, overloaded pain receptors couldn’t sort them all out. The fireman grimaced and gasped and forced himself to begin taking inventory.

He was flat on his back and upside-down. He knew he was upside-down, because all the blood was rushing to his head.

Turned out, he hadn’t been bitten or buried. At least, not completely buried, because he could still feel the heat of the late-afternoon sun upon his upturned face.

He’d kept his eyes closed during the descent, to protect them. When he tried to raise his right hand, to shield them from the sun’s onslaught, the paramedic discovered that both of his forearms had been pinned to his sides. The only parts of him that he could get to move, were his head and his shoulders.

The fireman forced his tightly clamped eyelids open a crack and glanced down—er, up.

The entire lower half of his body had been buried in the rockslide, right up to—and including—his belly button.

All that crushing weight on his abdomen was putting a tremendous amount of pressure on his diaphragm, which, in turn, was making it rather difficult for him to breathe. In fact, if his increasing light-headedness were any indication, he was asphyxiating!

The rockslide victim promptly switched from ‘panicked patient’ mode back into confident paramedic mode. ‘Help is on the way. So, just try to relax,’ he calmly told himself, and continued his IPS.

His helmet had saved him from some serious head injuries. That is, until that last sapling had sent it sailing.

He’d managed to lose his helmet and his radio. Both of which were to remain strapped to his personage—at all times!

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” Gage gasped again. He had pointy, picky thornshrub branches poking into his neck, his back, his shoulders, his…personal parts. And there wasn’t a damn thing that he could do about it. He heard a sudden commotion coming from his left and slowly and carefully swung his head in that direction.

“We found him, Roy!” the lead rescuer breathlessly, and rather excitedly, reported, via his Captain’s borrowed HT. “He’s been half-buried in the slide!” Kelly continued.

“Looks more like…three-quarters,” Mike Stoker, who’d volunteered to assist Lopez and Kelly, more accurately, and a bit breathlessly, estimated.

“I don’t know,” Kelly confessed, as they continued to carefully make their way along the leading edge of the slide. “We haven’t had a chance to check him out, yet.”

“You don’t need to ‘check him out’, Chet. Just ‘ask’ him…”

The three rescuers finally reached their half—er, three-quarters buried crewmate’s position.

“Hey, babe. How yah doin’?” Kelly obligingly inquired and kept his right thumb depressed on the radio’s transmit button.

Gage forced his eyes open a crack and managed a crooked grin. “I’ll be doin’…a whole lot better…once you guys…get these…damn rocks…off of me…”

Stoker and Lopez promptly began lifting some of the larger stones from their buried buddy’s legs and stomach.

Kelly passed the radio into his left hand and began fumbling with the latches on the respirator’s case.

Both the victim and the Squad had been moved over to Engine 51’s new position.

Via the open mic’, John’s partner had caught his ‘get the damn rocks off of him’ comment. DeSoto exchanged relieved glances, and grins, with his Captain.

“Oh, and…please…be careful,” the buried half of Squad 51’s paramedic team breathlessly, and a bit shakily, continued, via their truck’s dash-mounted radio’s speakers.

“Right before the slide hit…” Gage breathlessly announced, “I had a…really pissed off…and rather large…California Diamondback…coiled up by…my left leg…I’m sure it’s…still around here…someplace.”

“That certainly explains a lot,” Captain Stanley muttered, solely to himself.

“I’ll bet that must a’ been some major deja` vu, huh,” Kelly glumly realized. “It didn’t bite you,” he confidently stated, but then added a bit more uncertainly, “Ri-ight?”

“If it did…I didn’t…feel it,” John breathlessly reassured his deeply concerned rescuer.

“Hey, Ro-oy? Man! He’s hurtin’ for certain, and seems to be havin’ a real hard time breathin’…I think he even looks a little…blue. I got the O2 all set up. Is it okay if I start him on it?”

Roy’s entire body tensed and his grip tightened on the radio’s mic’. “Go ahead. Start him on 10 liters. Ask him if he’s bleeding anywhere…”

“Something warm…is running down…the side of…my right leg,” Gage breathlessly reported. “A…boulder…cracked me…in the…shin…It must a’…split…the skin…”

“You had quite a scare. You sure that’s ‘blood’ that’s running down your leg?”

DeSoto exhaled an audible gasp of extreme frustration. He knew exactly what was happening and he knew why it was happening.

The tremendous weight was applying an enormous amount of pressure to the rockslide victim’s abdomen, compromising his diaphragm and seriously impairing lung function.

Roy gasped again, this time, in complete exasperation. “Get the damn rocks off of him!”

“His vitals were all normal when Johnny took them and they remain perfectly normal. Johnny examined him. I examined him. Neither of us could find any sign of head trauma. And still, Morton isn’t convinced that ‘alcohol’ is the sole cause for the guy’s ‘mental confusion’. So—as a precaution—he ordered an IV, and wants a vitals update—every five minutes. I don’t get it, Cap. When is Morton gonna learn to trust us?”

“Sounds more like it’s himself that he hasn’t learned to trust, yet,” the Captain solemnly contributed. “Well…I trust you. So, go on…Grab what gear you think you’ll need, and get down there!” he ordered. “I’ll monitor this guy for you.” Hank Stanley was very adept at taking vitals signs. A person couldn’t work with paramedics for over six years—and not be. “If there’s the slightest change in his condition, which I seriously doubt there will be, we’ll haul your ass back up here.”

DeSoto gave his understanding Captain a look of undying gratitude. “I’m on my way!” he announced and tossed the radio mic’ onto their truck’s front seat.

The paramedic grabbed a knapsack from one the Squad’s side compartments and began emptying their drug box into it.

Speaking of his ‘other’ boss…

The Bio-phone was a wonderful piece of radio telemetry equipment, with one major problem: its antenna system didn’t work when at the bottom of steep cliffs…or down in deep canyons.

Roy tugged the fully loaded knapsack onto his back. “We’ll use your radio. You can use the Bio-phone to update Morton and relay my findings and any doctors’ orders,” he further determined and then followed the fire officer and the Sheriff’s deputy over to the front of Engine 51.

‘Hang on, Johnny…’ Roy silently urged, as he was slowly lowered over the steep, brushy embankment, thirty feet down from the site of the landslide. ‘Hang on…’

Seeing the degree of respiratory distress his passed out ‘patient’ was now in, Kelly quickly detached the re-breather mask from the end of the oxygen tubing and tossed it aside.

Johnny’s chest was barely moving.

Chet knew, from his extensive First-Aid training, that he would need to use an oral airway and forced ventilations to get his unconscious friend’s lungs inflated.

The savvy rescuer removed the necessary items from an open case at his feet and tried desperately to remember Roy’s last lecture on their ‘proper’ usage.

‘An oropharyngeal airway, or an OPA, for short, is a curved piece of plastic that is inserted over the tongue to create an air passageway between the patient’s mouth and the posterior pharyngeal wall,’ he heard DeSoto drone on, in the not too distant recesses of his mind.

‘It is especially useful when the tongue or epiglottis falls back against the posterior pharynx in unconscious patients, effectively obstructing the flow of air. The preferred insertion technique is to use a tongue depressor to assist you. An alternate technique is to insert the OPA upside-down until the soft palate is reached. Then you simply rotate the device 180 degrees and slip it over the tongue. Be sure not to push the tongue backward and block, rather than clear, the airway. Also, be alert to any sudden changes in the patient’s mental status, as this device is poorly tolerated in conscious patients and may induce gagging, vomiting and aspiration.’

‘Sheesh!’ Kelly silently exclaimed, as his first attempt at insertion proved successful. ‘What a’ yah know…’ He had been paying attention, after all.

Chet attached the end of the oxygen tube to the ambu-bag and the bag to the O2 mask. The clear plastic, pliable mask was then fitted snugly over his cyanotic patient’s nose and parted lips and the respirator’s flow rate was adjusted—to 10 liters.

Since both of his fellow rescuers were already frantically busy, lobbing large rocks and scraping gravel off of their victim’s buried abdomen, Chet employed the one-handed ‘bagging’ technique that Johnny had taught him. His right hand was used to generate positive pressure, by squeezing the bag, while his left thumb and index finger pressed down on the mask, keeping the seal airtight and the mask securely in place. He saw Johnny’s chest rising and falling as a result of his bagging efforts and watched, relievedly, as fog began to form on the inside of his unconscious friend’s air-mask.

Speaking of deja` vu…

It wasn’t the first time that Gage had cracked a joke and then ‘conked out’ on him.

The mustached fireman suddenly found himself experiencing a rather unpleasant ‘flashback’, himself.

Kelly was recalling another ‘car over cliff’ rescue they’d rolled on, about four years back…

Gage had gotten bitten by a rattler then, and some of the reptile’s deadly venom had managed to make its way directly into his bloodstream, resulting in a rather harrowing ride down Bear Mountain, on the top of Engine 51’s hose bed.

Chet had knelt there beside his snake-bitten buddy the entire time, suctioning the poison out of the incised puncture wounds in the calf of Johnny’s right leg. He’d had to watch, helplessly, as his friend lay there on the hose bed, slowly dying—by degrees.

Johnny had fought desperately to remain conscious, but he was no match for the powerful poison that was attacking his central nervous system.

Then, just before passing out completely, the paramedic had flashed Kelly one of his trademark grins and joked, “You’re…giving…my leg…a…giant…hickey…Chet—”

The situation was looking pretty bleak, and Kelly couldn’t help but wonder, at the time, if his name was gonna turn out to be the last word John Gage ever spoke.

Still, looking back, it was, undoubtedly, the longest half-hour of Chet’s entire life…so far.

The longest twenty minutes of his life was the time he’d spent in the treatment room, waiting to find out if Gage was going to have a bad reaction to the antivenin.

Dr. Brackett had passed the time regailing him with all of the dire complications that could develop from being bitten by a rattler—besides just the direct neurotoxic action that was causing Johnny’s coma.

If left untreated, the venom could go on to cause paralysis, respiratory arrest, or even have cardiotoxic effects—such as cardiac arrest.

The skin around the wounds in Johnny’s lower right leg had begun to bulge and turn black.

Brackett informed him that, with any luck, the swelling and edema should be ‘resolved’ within a week, or so. However, there was always the risk of more serious complications, like necrosis of the local tissue with resultant gangrene, requiring surgical debridement, and, in extreme cases, amputation of the affected limb.

Then, of course, there were the pathogenic organisms in the snake’s mouth, and the fact that John had used his unsterile pocketknife to incise the puncture wounds.

Kelly had been turning paler and paler during the course of Kel’s impromptu lecture.

Brackett finally realized the adverse effect his ‘knowledge sharing’ was having on the vertical fireman and promptly tried to present a more ‘positive’ prognosis.

First-Aid had been administered immediately and a tourniquet had been quickly applied. Chet had done his best to suction some of the venom from the incised wounds. Fortunately, they had gotten Gage to Rampart in plenty of time for the antivenin to be effective.

Seems the serum works best when administered within four hours of a bite. That was the single most important factor affecting a ‘positive’ outcome.

The doctor then went on to explain how ‘the antivenom, or antivenin, is prepared by immunizing horses with venom from specific species of poisonous snakes. In Johnny’s case, the Western Diamondback. The serum is then extracted and purified.

There are specific indications for use of antivenom. Every bite, even if by a poisonous species does not merit its use. Antivenom is indicated only if serious manifestations of envenomation are evident such as coma, or other apparent neurotoxicity presents itself.’

Both the test dose that had been administered intradermally into Johnny’s left forearm, and the control dose that was administered into his right forearm, were carefully examined.

Chet was told that 10 vials was a pretty standard dosage in Grade-III cases, like Johnny’s.

John’s case was considered severe, because of the rapid onset and progression of envenomation symptoms: i.e., numbness around the nose and mouth, an altered level of consciousness and coma.

Kelly had watched, as the first vials of powdered antivenin were reconstituted with saline and then, one by one, slowly injected into Gage’s IV port.

Brackett had boasted that ‘the response to infusion of antivenom is often quite dramatic, with comatose patients sitting up and talking—coherently—within minutes of administration. Normalization of blood pressure is another early response. Neurotoxicity improves from the first 30 minutes but may require 24 to 48 hours for a full recovery. If response to antivenom is not satisfactory use of additional doses is advocated.’

Well, all 10 vials of antivenin were administered and two full hours passed, and John Gage was still not ‘sitting up and talking coherently’—or incoherently, for that matter, and his BP was still not back to ‘normal’.

An extremely concerned, and far less confident Doctor Brackett promptly wrote up an order for another dozen vials of antivenin and then had his ‘unresponsive’ patient transferred out of the ER and up to ICU, where his vital signs could be closely—and continuously—monitored.

It took over 18 tortuous hours for Johnny’s ‘neurotoxicity’ to improve. The paramedic spent a pain-wracked night, puking his guts out, in ICU. By the following morning, the antivenin had finally ‘kicked in’ and he went on to make a full—and complete—recovery.

Chet kept right on bagging, and staring sadly down at, his unconscious crewmate.

The paramedic had picked—what he had considered to be—the lesser of two evils.

While he didn’t necessarily agree with Gage, Kelly could certainly understand ‘why’ Johnny had made the choice he did.

Chet heaved a weary sigh and chanced a glance in his fellow rescuers’ direction.

Most of the bigger boulders had been removed from the lower half of their rockslide victim’s body.

Since shovel points were sharp, and helmet rims were not, the two men were currently digging with just their gloved hands and their headgear.

It wasn’t the first time the firemen had used their helmets to dig, and, in their line of work, it most likely wouldn’t be the last.

‘Anytime now, Roy…’ Chet silently pleaded. ‘Anytime now…’

DeSoto fought his way through the thick underbrush and finally reached the leading edge of the slide. The paramedic was more than a little relieved to see that his shiftmates had already managed to get most of the weight off of Gage’s midsection and were now frantically working on freeing the rest of him.

His partner appeared to still be unconscious, but his color looked pretty good—thanks to Kelly, who was, apparently, doing a ‘bang up job’ of bagging him.

“You guys sure work fast!” Roy breathlessly commended, as he carefully began threading his way through the fallen rocks. “Chet, I didn’t think you were paying attention,” he teasingly tacked on.

Kelly was so relieved to see Gage’s partner approaching, he couldn’t keep from grinning. “Neither did I,” he wryly confessed.

The latest rescuer reached the ‘incident scene’—amazingly, without twisting an ankle—and quickly slipped the knapsack from his back.

Kelly locked gazes with the vertical paramedic, and promptly asked for guidance. “What do you want me to do, Roy?”

“Continue forced ventilations,” DeSoto directed him. “You’re doin’ great! I’m just gonna grab a quick set a’ vitals here,” he announced and began rummaging through his knapsack.

Before Roy—or Johnny’s gag reflexes—had a chance to react, Chet had raised the oxygen mask, removed the oral airway and stopped the flow of O2.

All eyes returned to John, as the deep breath he had drawn was finally released, with a grimace and an agonized groan. The now moaning fireman gasped again and then forced his tightly clamped eyelids to open a slit. Gage glanced dazedly around and then squinted up at his partner. “Damn…I must be…in worse shape…than I thought…if they summoned…you…down here.”

Kelly quickly went to work, freeing their rockslide victim’s forearms…just in case the docs at Rampart were to order an IV.

“Welcome back,” John’s still-smiling associate greeted him, as he set about gathering a quick set of vitals. “How yah doin’?”

“I was just about…to ask you…that same question,” the vertical paramedic smartly replied.

“C’mon…you know the drill,” DeSoto patiently reminded his partner—er, patient. “What is your principal complaint?”

“That the authorities…don’t crack down hard enough…on drunk drivers,” Gage truthfully told him, and then grinned, as his latest comment caused his crewmates to snicker.

Roy rolled his eyes. “What is your principal medical complaint?” he impatiently repeated.

“Now that I can breathe again…I don’t really have one,” Johnny realized, once again being totally truthful. Hell, he now had dozens!

Roy pulled the tips of his stethoscope from his ears and placed the palm of his right hand upon his patient’s heaving chest. “Joanne’s mother got Christopher a ‘Rock Tumbler’ for Christmas,” the paramedic paused, as he rather painfully recalled the gawd-awful racket the contraption created whenever it was plugged in. “Bless her heart…” he insincerely added.

“Once Chris saw what it could do to rocks,” Roy calmly continued, “he started experimenting with ‘other’ objects. So, don’t try to give me that ‘I’m fi-ine’ line, because I’ve seen the damage ‘tumbling rocks’ can do to ‘other’, less-durable objects…such as yourself.”

Realizing that his partner had completely misread his response, John quickly ‘clarified’ his answer. “I don’t have one…because I hurt everywhere…equally.”

Roy thought that remark over for a few moments and then stubbornly inquired, “Where, exactly, is ‘everywhere’?”

Starting at the top of his un-helmeted head and working his way down, Gage obligingly began rattling off a ridiculously lo-ong list of hurting ‘everywheres’.

Most notable, to DeSoto’s discerning ears, was the broken branch that was jabbing him in the back and the possible fracture to his right tibia. The paramedic finished gathering and recording Gage’s vital signs and promptly slipped a hand beneath the unburied portion of his pained patient’s torso.

John could feel his friend’s fingers exploring along his back. “I’d appreciate it…if you would kindly…pull that damn branch…out of there,” he breathlessly announced. “Oh, and…get the stick that’s pokin’ me…in the back of the neck, too…while you’re at it.”

“I can’t remove the branch in your back, Johnny,” Roy regrettably informed him. “It’s penetrated the intercostal space, proximally, between your 6^th and 7^th right posterior ribs. Feels like it’s only about a half-an-inch or so in diameter, but I have no idea how deep it went.”

Gage gradually digested—and then chose to completely disregard—all of that, and continued to plead his case for the branch’s removal. “Well it can’t be in there very fa-ar.” Then, to prove his point—and reduce his level of extreme discomfort—he raised his back up off of the ‘damn branch’. Since Kelly now had both of his forearms unburied, he was able to keep himself detached from the irritating object, by propping himself up on his freed elbows. “There! That’s much better…”

For several seconds, DeSoto remained too astonished to even speak. “No it’s not!” he finally managed to get out, his voice now sounding somewhat ‘screechy’—and several octaves higher. The paramedic pulled his bandage scissors from his assessment kit and started cutting away his buddy’s dark blue FD jacket, as well as his lighter blue uniform shirt. “You—of all people—should know that you never—EVER—remove an impaled object in the field! What if it nicked the costal artery?…Or punctured a lung?”

“Hey, I didn’t remove the object from me,” his partner defensively stated. “I removed myself from the object. There’s a difference.”

“No there’s not!” DeSoto insisted. “But this isn’t the time—or the place—for semantics. How do you feel?”

John noted that his buddy’s blue eyes were still narrowed into icy, annoyed slits.

The ‘damn branch’ was wedged in between the boulders so tightly, Kelly couldn’t pull it out. So he simply snapped it off—flush—and then draped a folded up drop sheet over it, and all the rest of the picky/pokey protruding twigs and sticks, as well.

“Bandage this for me, will you, Chet,” Roy requested, once he had the puncture wound fully exposed and cleaned. “I better get another BP.”

The mustached fireman nodded his compliance to the senior paramedic’s request. Kelly opened the Trauma Box and began reaching for, and ripping open, sterile compresses and applying them to the open wound in his semi-prone pal’s now bare back.

Roy proceeded to take a whole new set of vitals—which he immediately radioed on to their Captain, who, in turn, relayed them on to Rampart.

Kelly couldn’t help but notice that the entire upper half of John’s torso was covered with cuts and abrasions, and deep bruises and contusions. “Sheesh, Gage. That rockslide really scoured the hillside with you. Turned you into a regular scrub brush scrub brush,” he wittily summarized. Chet finished securing the bandage in place and then began easing John down onto the bright yellow drop sheet.

Lopez had their slide victim’s twisted left leg nearly completely uncovered. He paused in his stone pitching just long enough to give Gage’s badly damaged body a somber glance. “Rolling stones may not gather any moss, but they sure did a good job of gathering him.”

Stoker was hard at work freeing up Johnny’s bleeding right leg. He stopped, right in mid-lob and shot his fellow rock tosser a puzzled glance. “What does that mean…exactly?”

Roy lowered his Captain’s radio and looked at his notes. “All right. Rampart wants me to get an IV started. Oh, and, Chet…”

“Brackett wants him back on O2. 8 liters. Can you get a nasal canula going on him?”

Suddenly, the sound of ‘boulders scraping against boulders’ was accompanied by a loud ‘rattle’.

‘Oh shit!’ John silently exclaimed, for the third time that fateful afternoon. The ominous sound had come from somewhere up around his left knee.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and all of their alarmed eyes darted in the direction the dreaded ‘rattle’ had come from.

Marco was especially hesitant to move, as he had been the one that had uncovered, and thus shaken, the large rattler’s tail’s scales. Lopez’s already wide eyes suddenly widened even further and began darting anxiously about, in search of the Diamondback’s ‘business’ end. “Madre de Dios!” he muttered aloud, when his roving gaze finally locked upon the enormous snake’s head.

The rattler’s open jaws were jutting out from beneath a boulder—less than a foot away from Johnny’s left pant leg.

Marco swallowed hard and began sending silent prayers heavenward.

“Hey, gu-uys?…I think it’s dead,” Lopez relievedly reported, after a full minute had passed, with no movement on the part of the snake—or anybody else, for that matter.

“If it is, it died with its mouth open,” Stoker, who had also been silently studying the reptile’s protruding jaws, noted.

“That’s gotta be like a rattler’s equivalent of ‘dyin’ with its boots on’…” Chet thoughtfully realized.

“It’s awfully close to his leg,” Mike further noted. “Like it must a’ been just about to bite him…when the slide hit.”

Kelly gulped and his head suddenly swung back in Gage’s direction. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” the previously poisoned paramedic shakily replied. “Ma-an! Next to an alarm at 03:00 hours, that is my least favorite sound in the whole entire world!” he confessed, and shuddered—visibly.

Chet flashed his still ‘a bit freaked out’ friend a sympathetic smile. “Yeah. Well. That’s perfectly understandable,” he comfortingly assured him.

Lopez placed the large rock in his gloved hands down upon the dead Diamondback’s head, and the subject was both ‘buried’—and quickly changed. “Okay. I got his left leg free, but somethin’ ain’t quite right. It looks sort a’…twisted.”

“Gage is sort a’ twisted,” Kelly promptly pointed out, in yet another attempt to keep the mood light.

“Ha. Ha,” his ‘sort a’ twisted’ shiftmate mirthlessly replied, but did finally manage to untense…a little.

DeSoto passed Lopez his bandage shears. “Open his pant leg up and check for any signs of bleeding, or broken bones, or…bite marks,” he morbidly finished.

Marco readily accepted both the scissors and his assignment.

Roy turned back to Lopez. “Marco, when you finish with the scissors, can you hand them to Mike?”

Upon hearing that his entire body was now unburied, Gage sat back up a bit and pondered. “Can I get up now? All this time, the blood has been rushing to my head, and it’s giving me one hell of a headache.”

DeSoto snatched up an IV kit and crouched beside his antsy associate. He placed a hand upon his partner’s bruised right shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze—and a not too gentle shove back. “That,” he simply stated, “is why God made Demerol.”

Five minutes, one IV, a nasal canula, some pants cutting, a bit more bandaging, two leg splints—and a lot of really ba-ad puns—later…

The four vertical firemen stooped beside their injured colleague’s unburied body—two on each side—and prepared to slide a backboard under him.

“Hey…gu-uys?…Don’t…Don’t give up your day jobs,” their ‘captive audience’ strongly advised.

Mike Stoker feigned hurt feelings. “I don’t think Johnny, here, appreciates our jocularity.”

John felt his rescuers beginning to raise him up just a bit, so that the backboard could be slipped beneath him. “Jocularity, huh. Is that what you guys call—OW! OW! My leg! My leg!”

Except for Roy, whose deeply-concerned eyes instantly widened with worry. “Right?…or left?”

“Both!” his patient gasped, from between teeth that were clenched tightly in pain. John Gage’s grimacing face proceeded to drain of all color, and he damned near passed out on them—again.

Since their task was already half accomplished, DeSoto reluctantly motioned for his fellow rescuers to quickly and carefully follow it through to its completion—regardless of the excruciating pain their actions might cause.

All four firemen exchanged extremely grim glances, as their horizontal friend’s sharply inhaled breath was released with yet another involuntary groan of sheer agony.

Station 51’s Captain completed his latest vitals update on victim one. He heard a large vehicle approaching and swung his helmeted head around, just in time to see Engine 85 arrive, in a cloud of dust.

85’s Captain climbed down from the rig and came jogging up to him. “What do we got, Hank?”

“Doug,” Hank Stanley greeted his fellow Captain, relief evident in his voice. “You’re just in time. One a’ my men got caught in a slide. I sent my crew down to dig him out.”

Hank flashed his fellow fire officer a grim smile. “He made it. They’re getting him packaged up, as we speak. I’m gonna need you and your guys to get my guys back up here.”

“You got us,” Henson assured him. He gave his fellow Captain’s right shoulder a supportive slap. Then he swung back around and began issuing orders to his crew.

Stanley suddenly heard the all too familiar, but still rather distant, sound of a wailing siren. He snatched up the Bio-phone’s handset and pressed its ‘send’ button. “Rampart Base, this is County 51…”

“This is Rampart,” Doctor Brackett quickly came back. “Go ahead, 51…”

“Rampart, 51 here. Reinforcements have arrived. We now have enough manpower to transport victim two. No ETA, yet on the second ambulance. Request permission to use the first ambulance to transport both victims…”

Inside the Base Station at Rampart General Hospital’s Emergency Receiving…

Kel Brackett heard the Captain’s request—er, plea. The physician picked up and examined 51’s first victim’s medical chart. Mr. Turner’s latest vital signs were well within the norm. In fact, they’d been—and had remained—perfectly normal all along. His right eyebrow arched in confusion. Then he reached down and depressed the nearest mic’s transmit button. “51, this is Dr. Brackett. I have no problem with that.”

“10-4, Rampart,” the Captain came back, relief once again evident in his voice. “The first ambulance is arriving now. 51 out.”

51’s Captain set the Bio-phone’s handset down and turned back to his…patient.

“An am-m-mbulance?” Pete alarmedly repeated and began glancing aimlessly around. “Has there been an acci-cident?”

Hank aimed his gaze skyward, and promptly began praying for God to grant him self-control. Cuz’, right then, he really really wanted to strangle their first victim.

“Hey…Gage…I think I’m gonna start calling you ‘Timex’,” Kelly quickly determined, as the four vertical firemen carefully picked up the paramedic’s Stokes, and then started carting its precious cargo clear of all the rock rubble, “cuz you ‘take a licking, but keep on ticking’.”

“You mean,” Mike Stoker quickly corrected, “he takes a licking…but keeps on talking.”

Their patient gazed wearily up at a passing cloud. Something suddenly dawned on John and he managed a rather wry smile, himself. “Did you hear that, Roy?” he smugly inquired. “Old Chester B., here, thinks I’m pretty gosh-darn ‘durable’.”

“Believe me, we all know how ‘durable’ you are, Johnny,” Roy assured him. “You’ve displayed your…‘durability’ on…numerous occasions. No-ow, why don’t you just try to relax…and enjoy the scenery…quietly.”

His partner’s lips slowly transformed from a smile into a pout. “Did you just—did he just tell me to shut up?”

Their victim’s eyes narrowed and then re-riveted on the brilliant patch of blue that was passing unsteadily by overhead. “We-ell…that wasn’t very ‘jocular’,” he grumpily determined, in a voice just barely above a whisper. Johnny then suppressed a smile, as his quiet comment caused his fellow firefighters to snicker, once again.

Since no choppers were currently available for an airlift, and since trying to haul four firefighters—and a Stokes—back up through the ridiculously dense underbrush would have proved to be both extremely painful and impossible, 51’s Captain had, reluctantly, directed his crew to utilize the same route out of the canyon that Gage and the car had taken to get down into it.

By the time the rescuers reached the base of the 200-foot precipice, 85’s guys were ready and waiting for them.

The terrain had been extremely difficult to traverse, and though John’s crewmates had tried to go extra ‘slow and careful’, all that jostling had wreaked havoc with their rockslide victim’s badly injured legs.

Roy’s partner—er, patient had passed out on him—twice, and he’d had to radio and request permission to administer more ‘pain-killers’.

The trip topside wasn’t exactly a ‘pleasant’ ordeal for their victim, either.

At long last, the rescue party reached the top of the steep cliff. They were pulled up over its edge and back onto the dirt roadway.

85’s guys quickly relieved 51’s completely spent crew of their burden and began heading off down the road, in the direction of the waiting ambulance.

Johnny’s shiftmates heaved sighs of relief and then followed their fellow firefighters over to where Big Red and Squad 51 were parked.

85’s guys stepped up to the back of the ambulance and set the second victim’s Stokes down beside the first victim’s.

The drunken driver spotted Gage and broke into a big, silly grin. "Sa-ay…I know you-ou! You’re the guy that gave me thefreeride." Pete’s left hand latched onto the sleeve of Captain Stanley’s’ FD jacket. "He’s the guy that gave me thefreeride," he repeated and motioned to the young man lying on the ground beside him.

The Captain’s eyes riveted upon the person being pointed out. "Actually, that ‘free ride’ turned out to be quite costly," he solemnly corrected. "Almost too costly," he quietly added and gave his injured crewman a rather sad smile, and a deeply-concerned once-over.

Pete’s grin instantly vanished and he gazed glumly down at the tops of his blanketed feet. "Oh-oh…Gee. Well…Idon’tthink I got much…ca-ash on me…Doyouguys take credit cards?"

The Captain exchanged looks of utter disbelief with his men and then everybody—including the Sheriff’s deputy, 85’s guys and the ambulance crew—cracked up.

When they weren’t endangering the lives of others, drunks could be pretty damn entertaining.

His TA’s x-rays hadn’t come back yet, and his rockslide patient’s ambulance was still 45 minutes out.

The doctor set his coffee down, popped a plastic cartridge into the portable cassette deck on the edge of his desk, rewound the tape it contained to the beginning of Squad 51’s last run, and pressed ‘Play’.

The physician then settled into his office’s swivel chair, picked his coffee cup up, leaned back—and had himself a little ‘listen’.

“Rampart, we have one, male victim of a vehicle accident. The victim’s car has left the roadway and plunged 200-feet into a canyon. My partner is down there now and reports that the victim is ‘somewhat’ mobile. We should have him back up on the roadway, shortly. Standby for vital signs…”

“Rampart, our victim is now out of the canyon. The gentleman’s name is Pete Turner and he is approximately 45. My partner reports that Mr. Turner was conscious and coherent—and standing outside of his vehicle—when he found him. No injuries were apparent. The victim is, however, showing signs of mental confusion...along with all the other classic symptoms of ‘alcohol intoxication’. Vital signs were…Pupils equal and reactive. Respirations 12 and regular. Breath sounds were normal. Pulse was 66. BP was 124, by palpation. Standby for an update on vit—…Uhhh, Rampart, we now have a second victim at our location. My partner just got caught in a rockslide…”

“51, this is Rampart. I’m still waiting for an update on victim one’s vitals…”

“Pulse is 64. BP is 122/64. Rampart, did you copy my last…about the rockslide and a second victim?”

“Rampart, victim one’s condition remains stable at this time. The second victim’s condition is currently unknown. Request permission to assist the engine crew with the rescue of my partner...”

“51, your primary responsibility is to your first victim. 200-feet is a long way to fall. There could be another, underlying cause for Mr. Turner’s ‘mental confusion’.”

“Rampart, my partner and I both examined the first victim. Neither of us found any indications of any ‘head’ trauma…”

“I’m not taking any chances, 51. Start an IV, D5W, TKO. Then, I expect a vitals update—every five minutes. The engine crew will just have to bring the second victim to you—”

‘I think it may be time for Doctor Mike Morton to go on another Fire Department ‘ride along’…’ the frowning physician silently determined, and took another tentative sip from his still-steaming cup.

The ambulance driver pulled into Rampart General Hospital’s parking lot and killed his siren.

Roy DeSoto saw his second victim’s eyes flutter open, and couldn’t help but smile. The paramedic found it most amusing that his partner had slept right on through forty-five minutes of wailing siren, but then had snapped awake the moment it ‘cut out’. He beamed his grin down at his drowsy buddy. “Did you have a nice nap?”

John Gage was currently in a ‘pain-free’ place. He gazed up at his questioner through a drug-induced haze and was finally able to make his mouth move. Unfortunately, his reply was incoherent. “Mmm…da…ja…ove…”

Less than a minute later, the ambulance’s back doors popped open and Miss McCall and Dr. Brackett appeared.

Dixie took Mr. Turner’s IV packet from the vertical paramedic and then motioned to his horizontal partner. “We’re set up for him in Three.”

Kelly and Stoker got the firetrucks parked and then Captain Hank Stanley and his engine crew followed Gage’s stretcher into Emergency Receiving.

The Captain’s roving eyes searched the hallway and suddenly riveted upon one of the white-be-smocked docs. “Ah. Dr. Morton,” he declared and quickly made his way down the corridor. “Just the man I wanna see. Dr. Brackett, would you mind if we used your office for a minute?” he cooly inquired, and clamped a hand down on the younger physician’s forearm.

Kel could tell that Hank Stanley was pretty steamed about something, and he was pretty sure he knew what that something was. ‘Oh…to be a fly on the wall.’ “Be my guest, Captain.”

“Actually,” Morton balked, “my patient has just arrived. I’ve got to get back to work.

“Yeah. Me too,” 51’s Captain confessed. “That’s why I’ll only keep you a minute.”

Then, before the young physician could protest further, the Captain pulled him off down the hall—in the direction of Dr. Brackett’s office.

The Captain escorted his captive into the office and quickly closed the door. “Before you had the opportunity to go ripping into Roy DeSoto, I wanted you to know that I ordered him down into that canyon.”

“—Wro-ong! As his Captain, I had every right. As Incident Commander, I have full authority to deploy L.A. County Fire Department personnel—as I see fit. I determined that, ordering the only paramedic left on the scene to baby-sit a guy—whose vital signs are all perfectly normal, and whose principal complaint is that he’s gotta ‘pee really ba-ad’—was not an efficient use of my available resources.”

“It would have taken them over half-an-hour to reach the scene, and Gage needed medical assistance—immediately.”

“Yeah. Well, your actions could have compromised victim one’s well being. The guy crashed his car into a 200-foot canyon, for cryin’ out loud! The alcohol could have been masking a possible brai—”

“—If there had been a ‘bump’, or a ‘bruise’—maybe,” the Captain conceded.

“My guys are two of the best in the business. When they tell you that there are no indications of any head trauma, you can make book on it, Mister! And what is it with you and all these ‘precautionary’ IV’s? This might be wrong with the patient, or that might be wrong. Gage and DeSoto usually have their hands full, just coping with what ‘is’ going on with their victims, without having to deal with what ‘might be’ going on with them.”

“I’m asking you to stop compromising my paramedics’ ability to provide their patients with adequate care.”

“None of the other docs order these ‘precautionary’ IVs. Which leads me to believe you’re being overly cautious.”

“Oh really? Because it seems, to me, like you’re more interested in covering your own ass. The reality was, Mr. Turner didn’t need a paramedic, or a ‘precautionary’ IV. What the guy needed, was a strong pot a’ coffee. Good day…Doctor.” With that—and a final sneer of obvious disapproval, the fire officer spun on his heels and promptly took his leave.

Mike Morton just stood there for a few moments, staring thoughtfully at the office’s open doorway.

When Dr. Kelly Brackett re-entered Treatment Room 3, the physician found his rockslide patient sitting up, but obviously unconscious.

His patient had to be unconscious, because Dixie was busy digging bits and pieces of his uniform shirt and jacket out of his perforated back, and the paramedic was completely oblivious to the pain her actions were undoubtedly causing.

Johnny was sleeping—rather soundly—in his partner's arms, with his forehead resting on Roy's right shoulder.

The sight was rather touching, and Kel couldn't keep from smiling. "Has he been awake at all?"

"He came to for a few seconds, when Bernie cut the sirens," Roy replied, with a slight smile of his own.

The doctor's smile broadened for an instant, but then vanished entirely, as he quickly redirected his attention. "How deep is the wound, Dix?"

"I'm guessing about an inch," his head nurse solemnly answered. "That branch came awfully close to puncturing a lung."

DeSoto glanced down and gave the back of his buddy's bowed head a 'What did I tell you?' glare.

The physician's gaze shifted to the lower half of the young fireman's traumatized body.

Johnny's dark blue uniform slacks had been reduced—literally—to a pair of 'cutoffs'. His black boots were badly scuffed, and still on his feet.

With his current wardrobe, and his long hair, John Gage looked more like a castaway that had been rescued from some deserted island, than the victim of a potentially deadly rockslide.

RN Carol Hanley had uncovered—and was currently cleaning—the six-inch gash on his patient's bleeding right shin.

Johnny's other leg had been splinted in the exact position in which it had been found: with his left heel and calf aiming out away from his body at an extremely unnatural angle.

"I haven't come across any bone chips," Miss Hanley relievedly reported. "Shall I bring you a suture kit, Doctor?"

"We'd better wait til we see what his x-rays have to say," the now frowning physician told her. "Help me get the rest of his clothes off. Will you, Carol…"

Carol nodded her compliance and quickly began cutting away what was left of the fireman's uniform slacks.

Kel crossed over to the end of the examination table and started untying the laces on Johnny's left boot. The doctor got the laces undone and then began tugging—ever-so-carefully—on the boot in his hands.

Johnny emitted a low moan and slowly turned his hanging head. He forced his weary eyes open and gazed blurrily down at the BP cuff that was strapped to his upper left arm. 'Uh-oh.' Gage lifted his groggy gaze and got his first good look at his 'twisted' left leg. 'Oh shit!' he silently exclaimed, for the fourth time that fateful shift. He drew in a deep breath, pulled his whoozy head up and then straightened his stiff, sore neck. The fireman's drooping eyelids flew open, as he suddenly found himself face-to-face, and practically nose-to-nose, with his partner. "Call…call Dr. Franks…for me...Roy," he desperately pleaded, and then promptly proceeded…to pass right out again.

"I can't call Dr. Franks for you, Johnny," DeSoto regrettably informed his passed out partner.

"It's okay, Roy," Brackett assured him. "If Johnny's gonna want a second opinion, I have no problem with that. I can even arrange temporary privileges for this 'Dr. Franks', if necessary. What's his specialty?"

Roy raised his deeply-troubled gaze from his partner's limp head, which was once again resting upon his right shoulder, and reluctantly replied, "Dr. Franks is Johnny's...chiropractor."

The physician's face filled with a look that was an equal mixture of 'distrust' and 'disgust'. "His chiropractor!" Kel angrily snapped back. "He may as well summon a 'witch doctor' and have him shake some rattles and recite 'mystic incantations' over him!"

Miss McCall was in the process of re-bandaging the wound in their rockslide patient's back. Her pretty face filled with more than a little outrage itself and she locked gazes with the opinionated ER doc. It was no secret—to anyone—that her boss despised 'chiropractors'. "Kel, you are as right about the field of 'chiropractic medicine', as you were about the 'paramedic program'!" That said—er, shouted, the opinionated nurse completed her task and quickly took her leave—before she could say—er, shout something she might regret later on.

The head of Rampart General's Emergency Receiving just stood there, staring at it, looking lost in thought.

Mike Morton stepped up to the ER’s Nurses’ Station and then stood there, staring glumly down at his damp feet.

Kel Brackett glanced up from his rockslide patient’s medical chart. “Why the long face?” he inquired of his young physician friend.

“My ‘traumatic brain injury’ patient just asked me for a shot of whiskey—no ice—and then promptly proceeded to puke on my shoes.” Mike exhaled an exasperated gasp. “Damn! I detest being ‘dressed down’ by someone who is not a member of the medical profession! I especially hate it, when that person is proven right.” The ‘dressed down’ doctor then quickly changed the subject. “What about you? What’s got you looking so glum?”

“Ah-uh. Seems Dix’ doesn’t’ ‘approve’ of my opinion of…chiropractors!”

Noting that Brackett had spat the name of the profession out like it was a bitter pill, Mike wisely moved on to a ‘less touchy’ topic. “How’s Gage doing?”

The older doctor’s frown deepened. “Fortunately, that branch in the back didn’t penetrate deeply enough to do any real damage. I just had a look at his films. They show a hairline fracture of his right tibia. I have no idea what’s going on with his left leg. His x-rays don’t reveal any fractures or dislocations. I ordered a cat-scan. As doped up as he is, he should be completely out of it. But the pain was so severe, I couldn’t even get his left boot off of him. The pain kept bringing him around…and he kept asking Roy to call his…chiropractor.”

“Oh, that guy is goo-ood! Treated me for a bum knee…an old soccer injury,” Mike explained. Upon seeing his colleague’s completely dumbstruck expression, he suppressed a smile and queried, “What do you find so difficult to believe? That I actually played soccer in college?…Or that Dr. Franks was able to fix my knee for me?”

“Both!” Brackett exclaimed, once he’d got his ability to speak back. “But mostly, that you would even ever consider going to one of those…witchdoctors—for medical treatment!”

“Dr. Franks came highly recommended, Kel. Joe said the guy has been working wonders with his sciatica. I must admit, I went strictly out of curiosity. But, much to my amazement, I got immediate relief! My knee feels terrific! In fact, it’s been feeling so good, I recently joined a local soccer team.”

Upon hearing that his distinguished colleague, Dr. Joe Early, had also been to this…‘witchdoctor’, Brackett’s bottom jaw had dropped open, in complete—and utter—astonishment. He spotted the very same silver-haired physician exiting Exam One. “Excuse me, Mike…” he begged off and began weaving his way down the crowded hospital corridor.

Early obligingly halted—dead in his tracks—and then promptly performed a rather spiffy about-face. “What’s up, Kel?”

Brackett stepped right up to his doctor buddy and then just stood there, staring at him—like he’d suddenly sprouted purple antennae, or something. “Whatever prompted you to go to a ‘chiropractor’?”

Early suddenly expressed a profound interest in the palms of his hands. “It’s more like ‘whoever’. I must confess, I was extremely skeptical, at first. But Dixie kept going on and on, about how she hasn’t had a bit of trouble with her twisted ankle, since she’s been seeing this ‘Dr. Franks’ fellow. So I finally broke down and gave the guy a call. I’ve been going to Franks—every other week—for the past three months, now, and haven’t been experiencing any sciatic pain—whatsoever. Yah know, you should probably give him a call, yourself, Kel. I bet he could do something about that sore arm of yours. Look, I really gotta run. How ‘bout we discuss this a little later on—over a cup of coffee…” he suggested and turned to take his leave.

“Sure, Joe…catch yah later,” Kel glumly conceded. He gave his busy colleague’s back one last look of utter disbelief and then returned to the Nurses’ Station.

But the physician found his favorite RN seated behind the counter, sorting through medical charts.

“Tell me, Dix, why is it, that everybody around here seems to know about this ‘Dr. Franks’ character—but me?” Kel annoyedly inquired.

“I don’t know, Kel,” Dixie replied—er, lied, and didn’t even bother looking up. “Do you think the fact—that you just called the guy a ‘quack’—might have something to do with it?”

“I didn’t call him a ‘quack’,” Kel quickly corrected. “I called him a ‘witchdoctor’.”

“Six of one…a half dozen of the other,” Miss McCall bitterly reasoned and kept her angry blue eyes riveted upon her medical charts.

Failing to find fault with the woman’s logic, Kel wisely shifted course. “Why didn’t you tell me that your ankle was still bothering you?”

“I did,” Dixie reminded him. “You sent me to see a physical therapist. Remember? Well, physical therapy just made it worse.”

“Why-y?” the RN sarcastically demanded, and finally allowed her angry gaze to raise from her charts. “What would you have done? Kissed it…and made it all better?”

“I’d already been to a ‘specialist’—several of them, in fact. Then, Roy told me what Dr. Franks had done for Johnny…and him…and Joanne. Look, whether you like it, or not, there is a need for doctors like Byron Franks.”

Miss McCall managed a faux smile. “That would be a complete waste of breath. I learned, a lo-ong time ago, that the only person capable of getting Dr. Kelly Brackett to change his mind about something is…Dr. Kelly Brackett.”

Dr. Kelly Brackett arched an eyebrow. “If I’m such a cantankerous son-of-a-bitch, why do you even bother putting up with me?”

Dixie’s blue eyes softened and her smile suddenly turned genuine. “Because, as wrong—and as stubborn—as you can be, at times…you—eventually—put your pigheaded pride aside…and do the right thing…”

A brief period of silence followed, as the ‘stubborn’ and ‘pigheaded’ physician contemplated the truthfulness of his head nurse’s heartfelt words. “Are they ready for him in Radiology?”

“Not yet,” the RN regrettably replied. “There are still four more cat-scans scheduled ahead of him.”

The disappointed doctor drew in a deep breath and started striding off, in the direction of Treatment Room 3.

In spite of all the pain meds that were coursing through his veins, John Gage was obviously in a great deal of agony.

It was common knowledge that the paramedic had an astronomically high pain threshold.

So Johnny had to be in a great deal of agony, or he wouldn’t have been moaning—leastways, not aloud.

Brackett gave his watch a quick glance and his frown deepened. It was waaaay too soon to administer more barbiturates. To do so would mean risking respiratory arrest. “How long has your partner been seeing this…‘Dr. Franks’?”

Roy glanced up. “Remember last April, when Johnny got caught in that structural collapse?”

“Well, he was stuck in a wheelchair after that. So, me—and some of the other guys—would take turns bringing him to and from his PT appointments. I was taking him home, after his last appointment, and he asked if we could swing by his bank. Claimed he had some financial business to take care of. Anyways, while we were waiting in line at the bank, Johnny started telling me all about his recovery—or lack, thereof. He said that the physical therapy wasn’t helping him. In fact, he said it was just making things worse. He said he still couldn’t walk—without excruciating pain—and that he was afraid he was becoming dependent on drugs. Worst of all, when Johnny pointed out that he wasn’t getting any better, the physical therapist guy told him it might be time for him to consider making a career change. Johnny told the guy he didn’t want to change careers. He just wanted to get better.

As luck would have it, Dr. Franks happened to be standing in the next teller’s line and I guess he must have overheard everything. Because, before he left the bank, he stepped up to Johnny and asked what his occupation was. When he heard that Johnny was a paramedic with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, Dr. Franks said that paramedics had once saved his wife and daughter. Franks told Johnny that he was fairly certain that he could help him ‘get better’. Then he handed him his card and left.

I ended up taking him for his first appointment,” Roy fondly recalled, with a faint smile.

Roy’s smile broadened a bit upon hearing the doctor’s ‘gross’ understatement. “Doc, I wheeled Johnny into that office. He ended up walking out. Within a week, he was off all pain medication. Within two weeks, he was back at the Station.”

“Dr. Franks also fixed my left shoulder…and Joanne’s bruised tailbone…and Captain Stanley’s stiff neck…and Marco’s sore elbow…and Chet’s lower back…and Mike’s bursitis—”

Brackett threw both arms up—in surrender. “—All right, all right. I get the picture. I get the picture.”

“No!” the doctor adamantly stated. “I’ll…give him a call,” he begrudgingly determined.

John Gage’s partner broke into an outright grin and promptly whipped out his wallet. “Here’s his number…”

Brackett glanced down at the business card that had been pressed into the palm of his right hand. The doctor’s dark eyes just about doubled in size and his bottom jaw dropped open, for the second time that evening.

Imprinted upon the small piece of beige cardboard—in big, bold, black letters—was:

The irate physician exited Exam Three and went stomping back up to the Nurses’ Station. “Why didn’t you tell me the guy was board certified in three separate fields of medicine?” he demanded, looking and sounding more than a little ‘vexed’ with the pretty person seated behind the counter.

“I suppose I could have,” Dixie admitted. “But then, you might never have changed your mind about ‘chiropractors’,” the woman wryly—and rather slyly—pointed out. The pretty blonde nurse batted her big, incredibly blue eyes a few times and then beamed the flustered physician back a sweet, radiant, innocent smirk—er, smile.

Brackett knew when he was beat. The defeated doctor exhaled a long sigh of surrender. Kel eventually returned the RN’s smile—and then rather reluctantly began reaching for the desk phone on the counter.

“Ahhh-ahhh!” John Gage cried out in absolute agony. The rockslide victim clenched his eyes, his fingers and his teeth—tightly, and rode out the latest wave of excruciating pain to assault the left side of his body. His twisted left leg felt like it was being wrenched right out of its hip socket.

The pain mercifully receded just enough so that he was finally able to breathe—some. The fireman forced his tightly clamped eyelids open and took a long, bleary look around. He was lying on an exam table in Treatment Room 3. His partner was standing beside him, gripping his right hand in his, in an apparent attempt to keep him from yanking his IV out. He saw the grimace on his buddy’s face and realized that he was gripping back—really gripping back. “Sorry,” he gasped in a hoarse whisper, and quickly unclenched his right fist.

Roy tightened his own grip and smiled down at him. “What? That? That was nothing. You should try holding onto my wife’s hand, while she’s watching a really scary movie.”

John gave his married amigo a strange stare. “I…appreciate…the offer,” he insincerely—and rather breathlessly—stated. “But I am…definitely…gonna…pass…on that,” he lightly determined, and even managed to muster just the slightest of wry smiles—before the next agonizing wave hit. His face—and his fingers—once again contorted in pain. He pulled his right hand free from his poor pal’s crushed appendage and then gripped the side edges of his backboard until his knuckles turned white. “HU-URTS!” he screamed, through tightly clenched teeth.

Seeing the extent of his friend’s suffering, Roy’s own face filled with pain. He placed his right hand down upon his panting partner’s and gave it a couple of supportive pats. “I know, Johnny. Believe me, I know. But that’s actually a good thing.”

Johnny’s eyes snapped open and he gave his buddy an ‘Are you nuts?!’ glare.

“Remember what Dr. Franks’ receptionist told you, when you first called to make an appointment? She said that analgesics mask symptoms. Remember? You had to go off your pain meds before Dr. Franks could examine you.”

His associate was now hurting too much to speak, or he was too astonished to speak. Whatever the cause/case, Gage remained silent.

Actually, it shouldn’t have been that difficult for them to imagine Kelly Brackett doing an ‘about face’ on the matter of ‘chiropractic medicine’.

After all, the good doctor had once gone from the Paramedic Program’s biggest opponent to its biggest proponent.

‘No Demerol,’ the hurting fireman sadly—and silently—noted. “Can I…at least have…some…water?” he breathlessly pleaded. All that gasping and panting was making his throat and mouth extremely dry. They were almost too dry now to be able to speak.

The senior paramedic gave the back of his pained—parched—pal’s hand a few more comforting pats. “Sorry, Johnny. Brackett’s already got an O.R. reserved for you, and two orthopedic surgeons on standby, just in case Dr. Franks’ ‘adjustments’ don’t do the trick.” That said, he snatched a small chunk of ice from a Styrofoam cup on the closest equipment stand and pressed it up to his panting partner’s cracked, dry lips.

‘No water,’ the parched fireman duly—and silently—noted. John flashed his thoughtful friend a grateful smile—and then braced himself, as the next wave of excruciating pain rammed into the lower left side of his body. “Gahhh-ahhhhhhhh!”

Kel heard a light tap on his open door’s wooden frame and glanced up from his desk.

A rather tall (6’4”, at least), middle-aged gentleman with a distinguished mustache and raven black hair, graying—ever so slightly—at the temples, was standing there. He was wearing a black leather jacket over a white Polo shirt, and a pair of worn, faded blue jeans. There was a genuinely warm smile on his tanned face—and a mischievous twinkle in his big, dark brown—kind—eyes.

‘Seems pleasant enough,’ Kel mused and, assuming that this was the person that he had summoned, motioned for his invited visitor to enter his office.

The man immediately did. “Byron Franks,” the doctor with three different medical degrees introduced and extended his right hand.

“Kel Brackett,” the head of Rampart General Hospital’s Emergency Receiving cooly countered. He took and shook the proffered appendage and then motioned for the guy—er, his ‘guest’ to have a seat.

“Please excuse the casual attire,” Franks requested. “I was out of the office when I received your page.”

“No problem,” Kel assured him. “I did some checking. It appears that you have full privileges here, at Rampart, as both an M.D. and a D.O.. If I were to permit you to examine this patient, in what ‘capacity’ would you be doing so?”

Dr. Byron J. Franks was forced to smile. “Normally, I don’t ‘jump through hoops’ for anybody. But I will—for John’s sake. John Gage is an exceptional young man, and—if it means that he may not have to undergo an unnecessary surgical procedure—then I will gladly perform for you…like a trained circus pony. John is a patient of mine. I came here as his chiropractor. If permitted to do so, I shall endeavor to assist him—in whatever ‘capacity’ is necessary to insure him a speedy—and complete—recovery.”

Kel found himself smiling back at John Gage’s…chiropractor. While he may not ‘approve’ of Dr. Franks’ methods, he wholeheartedly agreed with the man’s motives. ‘Minds are like umbrellas,’ he silently reminded himself. ‘They function best when open.’

His paramedic partner suddenly poked his head into the room. “Doc, can you co—? Dr. Franks! Thank God you’re here! The pain is really bad! Johnny’s getting awfully shocky!”

Brackett nodded, curtly, and motioned for the…chiropractor to follow him from the room.

“How long have you been having a problem with your right arm?” Franks casually inquired, as Roy DeSoto led them off down the crowded corridor, en route to his—er, their pained patient’s current location.

Kel arched an eyebrow in the chiropractor’s direction. “A couple of biker gangs came through here, a few years back.” He gave his perpetually aching limb a quick rub. “How did you know that I had a sore arm? Did someone mention it to you?”

“I have a degree in human kinetics. I have made the study of movement of the human body my life’s work. I noticed that the range of motion in your right shoulder seems to be somewhat restricted. And, you probably won’t believe this but, the problem is not in your arm, o-or your shoulder. It’s in the trapezoid muscle, just below your right shoulder blade. I’m guessing there’s a knot there—the size of a softball. I could take care of that for you…if you like?”

“Fine! How ‘bout right now?” Kel counter-proposed. The ER physician’s mind was open, all right, but still filled with doubt.

“I would,” Franks calmly came back. “But you seem to be ‘on duty’ here, and I’m afraid the treatment will render your right arm quite useless to you—for a couple of days, anway. Next time you get some time off, though…please, give me a call.”

Kel sighed in frustration and followed 51’s senior paramedic into Treatment Room 3.

Author’s note: I’m sure most everyone is familiar with the role of M.D.s—medical doctors.

However, to help readers better understand Dr. Franks’ medical background, I have included the following info:

A doctor of osteopathic medicine (D.O.) is a physician licensed to practice medicine, perform surgery, and prescribe medication.

Like allopathic physicians (or M.D.s), osteopathic physicians complete 4 years of medical school and can choose to practice in any specialty of medicine. However, osteopathic physicians receive an additional 300 - 500 hours in the study of hands-on manual medicine and the body's musculoskeletal system.

Osteopathic medicine is dedicated to treating and healing the patient as a whole, rather than focusing on one system or body part. An osteopathic physician will often use a treatment method called osteopathic manipulative treatment (also called OMT or manipulation), a hands-on approach to make sure that the body is moving freely. This free motion ensures that all of your body's natural healing systems are able to work unhindered.

Osteopathic physicians hold to the principle that a patient's history of illness and physical trauma are written into the body's structure. The osteopathic physician's highly developed sense of touch allows the physician to feel (palpate) the patient's "living anatomy" (the flow of fluids, motion and texture of tissues, and structural makeup).

Like M.D.s, osteopathic physicians are licensed at the state level. Osteopathic physicians who wish to specialize may become "board certified" (in much the same manner as M.D.s) by completing a 2- to 6-year residency within the specialty area and passing the board certification exams.

D.O.s practice in all specialties of medicine, ranging from emergency medicine and cardiovascular surgery to psychiatry and geriatrics. A majority of osteopathic doctors use many of the medical and surgical treatments that are used by other medical doctors.

Chiropractic programs require a minimum of 4,200 hours of combined classroom, laboratory, and clinical experience. During the first 2 years, most chiropractic programs emphasize classroom and laboratory work in sciences such as anatomy, physiology, public health, microbiology, pathology, and biochemistry. The last 2 years focus on courses in manipulation and spinal adjustment and provide clinical experience in physical and laboratory diagnosis, neurology, orthopedics, geriatrics, physiotherapy, and nutrition. Chiropractic programs and institutions grant the degree of Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.).

Chiropractic colleges also offer postdoctoral training in orthopedics, neurology, sports injuries, nutrition, rehabilitation, radiology, industrial consulting, family practice, pediatrics, and applied chiropractic sciences. Once such training is complete, chiropractors may take specialty exams leading to “diplomate” status in a given specialty. Exams are administered by chiropractic specialty boards.

Licensure: All States and the District of Columbia regulate the practice of chiropractic and grant licenses to chiropractors who meet the educational and examination requirements established by the State. Chiropractors can practice only in States where they are licensed. Some States have agreements permitting chiropractors licensed in one State to obtain a license in another without further examination, provided that their educational, examination, and practice credentials meet State specifications.

Most State licensing boards require at least 2 years of undergraduate education, but an increasing number are requiring a 4-year bachelor's degree. All boards require the completion of a 4-year program at an accredited chiropractic college leading to the Doctor of Chiropractic degree.

For licensure, most State boards recognize either all or part of the four-part test administered by the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners. State examinations may supplement the National Board tests, depending on State requirements. All States except New Jersey require the completion of a specified number of hours of continuing education each year in order to maintain licensure. Chiropractic associations and accredited chiropractic programs and institutions offer continuing education programs.

Other qualifications. Chiropractic requires keen observation to detect physical abnormalities. It also takes considerable manual dexterity, but not unusual strength or endurance, to perform adjustments. Chiropractors should be able to work independently and handle responsibility. As in other health-related occupations, empathy, understanding, and the desire to help others are good qualities for dealing effectively with patients.

Kinesiologists: Kinesiologists are conferred a Bachelor of Science degree (or higher) in Kinesiology or Human Kinetics—the study of movement of the human body.

Hope this helps. * fingers crossed*

Upon noting that her pained rockslide patient’s condition was steadily deteriorating, Dixie had sent his partner out to fetch Kel for her.

She heard the exam room door swing open and glanced up from the glass dial on Johnny’s blood pressure gauge in time to watch Roy return, with both the summoned ER physician, and Dr. Byron J. Franks, in tow. “BP’s dropping, Kel! He’s going into shock! Keeps passing out on us!” she anxiously announced and tugged the tips of her stethoscope from her ears.

Through a thick haze of extreme pain and confusion, John Gage heard a very familiar voice. “Di-ix?”

The RN placed a comforting hand on the hurting young man’s bruised right shoulder and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “I’m right here, Johnny.”

“I ain’t…gonna be able to…take this…too much…longer,” her exceedingly pained patient breathlessly, and rather regretfully, reported.

“Then it’s a good thing Dr. Brackett called me when he did,” Dr. Franks solemnly determined.

The hurting fireman forced his tightly clenched, tear-streaming eyes open a crack.

Dr. Brackett was standing at his right side, and Dr. Franks was standing at his left.

The pained paramedic’s bleary, blurry gaze shifted back and forth, between the two doctors, before finally riveting upon his ‘boss’.

Kel stared down at his ghostly pale, pained and panting patient—and friend, and forced a sad smile. “I haven’t seen you this ‘banged up’ since that time you drove that semi off that freeway on-ramp.”

Gage managed an amused ‘gasp’ and returned his concerned boss’ smile. “Thanks…for allowing…Dr. Franks…to be here…Doc’…I know…how you feel…about…chiropractors.”

“Yeah. Well…Dix’—and just about everybody else around here—assures me that I am dead wrong.” Kel glanced up and locked gazes with Johnny’s…chiropractor. “I only hope that they are dead right…”

Another fleeting smile flashed across Dr. Franks’ face and he gazed brazenly back at his extremely skeptical colleague. “‘First, do no harm,’” the chiropractor quoted. “I will not do anything that might cause John further injury,” he reassuringly vowed.

Kel’s decision was made a might easier for him, as his—er, their patient suddenly emitted another involuntary groan of sheer agony.

“Oh-Oh!…Gawwwd!” the pained paramedic screamed, just prior to passing right out again.

Dixie turned to Kel and gave the doubt-filled doctor a ‘Don’t just stand there! Do something!’ glare.

Franks face filled with even greater concern. He glanced up from the young fireman’s still form and locked gazes again with the skeptic. “May I please proceed?”

“All right! All right!” the head of Rampart General Hospital’s ER reluctantly surrendered. “I’m granting you ‘temporary’ privileges here…” the physician’s face filled with distaste and he had to force himself to finish his sentence, “as this patient’s…chiropractor.”

Franks’ mustached face immediately lit up. “Thank you, Dr. Brackett! Okay, I want you to fill me in, here, Roy.” He glanced in Miss McCall’s direction. “I will also need to see his chart and examine his x-rays.”

Dixie nodded and promptly passed the chiropractor a metal clipboard containing his unconscious patient’s recent medical information.

And Dr. Byron J. Franks, D.C. was ready to begin his ‘hands on’ patient exam. “Talk to me, John…” the chiropractor encouraged, as his skilled appendages began a thorough exploration of the paramedic’s traumatized body.

“Dull pain,” Gage gasped and swallowed—hard. His mouth and throat were entirely too dry to permit speaking.

DeSoto held another small chunk of ice up to his panting partner’s open—and incredibly dry—hatch.

His hurting friend’s parched lips formed a slight smile, as the cool liquid lubricated his tongue. “Constant…” he quickly continued, “radiating down…the outside…of my left leg…level 10!”

“Sharp…searing pain,” John went on. “Comes in—” the fireman’s already grimacing face suddenly contorted even further, “waves!” he breathlessly exclaimed. “Level 20!” he half-jokingly tacked on through tightly clenched teeth—right before mercifully slipping back into unconsciousness.

Dr. Franks finished his preliminary exam and turned to the only RN in the room. “Miss McCall, I’m gonna need a Charter Oak phone directory.”

Dr. Kelly Brackett was a bit befuddled by the chiropractor’s odd request. “Who do you intend to call?”

“Nobody,” Franks assured him. “I don’t have my decompression table here. I intend to use the phone book as a fulcrum. I figure the Charter Oak directory should be about the perfect size.”

Fearing that his hurting fireman friend might flail around and fall off the examination table, DeSoto had re-secured the strap buckles on his backboard.

Dixie returned less than two minutes later, and handed Dr. Franks the requested phone book.

“Thanks!” Byron told his lovely assistant. Then, for his fellow—hoop-holding—physician’s sake, he dramatically declared, “I shall now endeavor to ‘undo’ the damage that was done, by applying the right amount of force…in the right direction…and in the right place.”

Beginning at his perfectly still patient’s head—and using specific directional ‘pulls’ and ‘thrusts’—the chiropractor proceeded to ‘maneuver’ and ‘manipulate’ his way down the fireman’s badly damaged body.

The phone book was employed to ‘specifically adjust’ the paramedic’s severely tilted pelvis back into proper alignment. Another ‘specific adjustment’ was made to his patient’s partially dislocated left hip.

Dr. Kelly Brackett watched—in complete and utter disbelief—as John Gage’s twisted left leg suddenly straightened out—without having even been touched. Kel closed his gaping jaws and aimed his amazed—er, astounded gaze in the chiropractor’s direction. “How—How did you do that?!”

“Palmer Chiropractic College,” Byron Franks simply—and rather proudly—replied. “Class of ‘75.”

Roy DeSoto saw his fireman friend’s eyelids starting to flutter open and quickly stepped up beside him. “How do you feel, Johnny?” The knot in the pit of the senior paramedic’s stomach slowly unwound as, for the first time in the past twenty-five minutes, his partner’s face filled with a grin, instead of a grimace.

“Hung—Hungry,” Johnny somehow managed to get out of his exceedingly dry mouth.

Johnny’s grin must have been highly contagious, for it had infected everybody in the exam room.

Dr. Kelly Brackett, who still could not ‘completely’ believe what he’d just witnessed, bent over his grinning rockslide patient’s untwisted body and cautiously inquired, “How’s the pain?”

“My…right leg…really hurts…” Gage managed to get out, following another melted ice chunk.

“Bad enough to keep you out of commission for the next three to four weeks. But it’s a simple, hairline fracture. So I don’t foresee any problems. I’d like to give that cut a chance to heal before we apply a cast, though. That means a full leg brace—and a week of complete bed rest. What about your left leg?”

Johnny wriggled his left foot and flexed his left knee a bit. “My…left hip’s…a little sore…Otherwise…it feels…pretty damn good.” The hungry—and no longer hurting—fireman swallowed hard and then proceeded to put forth a rather pitiful inquiry of his own. “I don’t suppose…a guy could…maybe get a…chocolate malt…around here?”

Miss McCall’s grin broadened. “Oh-oh…I think that can be arranged,” she warmly replied, following a nod of approval from a still somewhat dazed and amazed Dr. Brackett.

Byron Franks suddenly looked a bit ‘dazed and amazed’ himself. The chiropractor leaned over and locked gazes with his prone patient. “Did you really drive a semi off a freeway onramp?”

“I dunno,” his patient replied, with a sore shrug of his bruised right shoulder. “It just seemed like the thing to do…at the time.”

John Gage’s chiropractor slowly shook his head. “Driving semi’s off of freeway onramps…having buildings and boulders fall on you…”

The young fireman continuously placed himself in harm’s way, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that he would—occasionally—be ‘harmed’.

Byron aimed a sort a’ sad smile down his patient with the ‘dangerous’ career—that he so desperately desired to hold on to. “Keeping you ‘vertical’ is going to be a real challenge, isn’t it.”

“You have no idea!” his ‘other’ doctor dryly remarked. Kel smiled, seeing that his wry comment had caused everyone in the exam room to grin, again. He stepped up to the phone on the wall and placed a call. “Yes. This is Dr. Brackett in Treatment 3. I need a patient transferred to Orthopedics…John Gage…Fractured right tibia…Right…Thanks.” The physician replaced the phone’s receiver and gave his wristwatch a quick glance. His smile slowly broadened into a grin.

The doctor beamed his grin in Miss McCall’s direction. “Do me a favor, will yah, Dix. Before you bring this guy his ‘chocolate malt’, cancel his cat-scan and the O.R.. Oh, and let Dr. Knaus and Dr. Rhamey know that their surgical expertise will not be required, after all.”

Kel snatched up the Charter Oak phone directory and then locked gazes with John Gage’s—er, his chiropractor. “I happen to know that there is an empty treatment room—right next door. I would very much appreciate it, if you would take a look at my sore arm, Dr. Franks. And, while you’re ‘fixing’ it, perhaps you would be so kind as to explain what the hell just happened here…”

Dr. Franks couldn’t help but chuckle. “It would be my pleasure, Dr. Brackett!” he readily—and rather relievedly—announced, and quickly followed his fellow physician out into the hall.

Less than two minutes later, Kel found himself stripped to the waist and lying—face down—on a treatment table in Exam One. “You sure you’re not a witchdoctor?” he half-jokingly inquired. “Because, what I just witnessed in there, sure seemed like ‘witchcraft’—to me.”

Dr. Byron Franks found a bottle of baby oil in one of the exam room’s many glass-doored cabinets and promptly applied it to his freshly scrubbed—and highly skilled—hands. The chiropractor caught his colleague’s semi-serious comments and couldn’t help but smile. “Nope. Though my extensive training—and years of experience—occasionally do permit me to work ‘magic’,” he half-jokingly admitted. The chiropractor promptly stepped up to his patient, but then hesitated to put his hands upon him. “I hope you don’t have to work tomorrow…”

“It’s Friday. As head of my department, I have just decided to give me, myself and I the weekend off.”

Once again, Dr. Franks was forced to grin. The chiropractor then proceeded to perform his ‘hands on’ patient exam.

“What did just happen in there?” Kel suddenly re-inquired. This time, sounding deadly serious—and incredibly curious. “How did you know what to do—er, undo, when his x-rays didn’t reveal anything?”

“By listening. I listened to what Roy had to say…to what John himself told me his symptoms were, and to what my own eyes and ‘touch’ were telling me. Roy said that John was able to tolerate it, when they drew his twisted leg in toward his body, but that, when they raised his hips up, to slide the backboard under him, the pain quickly became unbearable. I was able to use that ‘specific’ information to understand the mechanics of the injury. Once I had determined what ‘specific’ damage was done, and ‘how’ it was done, I was able to utilize my ‘extensive training’ and ‘years of experience’—my ‘magic’, if you will, to undo it.”

Kel still had no clue as to how the chiropractor had managed to ‘pull it off’.

“Just as I suspected,” Franks declared, as his probing fingers suddenly detected a softball-sized knot in the muscle directly below his patient’s right shoulder blade. “Feel that?” he inquired, as his highly-skilled appendages outlined the problem area.

“Ouch! Yes. I still don’t get it. How can a knot—waaaay down there—possibly make my right arm sore?”

“The pain in your arm was caused by a ‘chain reaction’, or Dominoes affect. One muscle becomes damaged and can no longer function properly. The surrounding muscles compensate and quickly become overworked…and so on and so forth. Sheesh! This knot has been here for several years, hasn’t it…” Franks realized, as his ‘magic fingers’ failed to have much—if any—affect on the softball-sized mass of constricted muscle tissue. “It’s gonna take a bit of ‘elbow grease’ to get your poor traumatized muscle to relax,” the chiropractor regrettably predicted. That said, he literally began using his right elbow to work the stubborn knot out.

Dr. Kelly Brackett cried out—in absolute agony—as the chiropractor’s bony elbow began grinding into his back—just below his right shoulder blade. “You sure…you don’t have…any ‘rattles’…or ‘incantations’…you could use…instead?” his pained patient moped—er, hoped, between gasped breaths and gritted teeth.

Once again, Dr. Franks was forced to grin. “Hurts like hell, doesn’t it. I tell my patients to just try to think of it as a ‘good pain’.”

Fifteen minutes of ‘manipulation’ and ‘massage’—and plenty of ‘elbow grease’ and ‘good pain’—later…

Kelly Brackett slowly and stiffly sat back up on the examination table. The still-grimacing doctor just stayed there for awhile, staring glumly down at his seemingly paralyzed right arm.

Franks suppressed yet another grin, seeing that his already ‘reluctant’ patient looked like he was suddenly having ‘second thoughts’. “The paralysis is only temporary. The nerve pathways just require a little time to re-establish themselves. In the meantime, drink five to six glasses of water right away,” the chiropractor promptly prescribed, “to flush the toxins that were released from that knotted muscle out of your system. Then, be sure to drink plenty more liquids over the course of the next couple of days. It should keep you from experiencing flu-like symptoms.”

Once again, his grinning colleague couldn’t help but chuckle. “Anytime! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to check on John one last time, before I go.”

“So would I,” Kel confessed. “If you’ll help me get my shirt back on and re-buttoned, I’ll take you up there.”

“Deal!” Byron declared and began helping his patient with the paralyzed right arm get redressed.

Brackett glanced from Franks to his bum arm, and then back to Franks, again. “Only temporary, huh…”

Franks flashed his seemingly ‘eternally skeptical’ colleague a reassuring smile. “I promise.”

Kel remained somewhat dubious, but eventually returned his chiropractor’s smile. ‘Minds are like umbrellas…’ he mentally repeated.

Hank Stanley, and his entire off-duty engine crew, stepped up to the Nurses’ Station in Rampart’s Emergency Receiving.

“Roy says he’s in the Ortho’ Ward,” the Captain reported. “Why don’t you guys go grab yourselves a cup of coffee—before you come up,” Hank ordered—er, requested.

Stanley flashed the trio an appreciative smile and started striding off down the corridor.

“Gage is going to the woodshed,” Kelly solemnly predicted, in a sing-song fashion.

His crewmates grinned and then started strolling off—in the opposite direction of their disappearing Captain.

Dr. Mike Morton exited Exam Two and nearly collided with Gage and DeSoto’s ‘other’ boss. “Captain,” the physician greeted the fireman, “I was hoping I’d see you. As much as I hate to admit it, it turns out that I was wrong yesterday. Are we cool?” he inquired, and extended his right hand.

Hank took and shook the young doctor’s proffered appendage. “We’re cool,” he assured him. “Now, let me ask you something…”

The off-duty fire officer directed his right index finger toward Treatment Room 2. “Would you ever walk in there, wearing a blindfold and ear plugs?”

“It’s my understanding that paramedics are supposed to act as a doctor’s eyes and ears on the scene. When you choose to ignore what Gage and DeSoto are telling you, that is—in effect—exactly what you are doing…going in there ‘blind’ and ‘deaf’. You need to learn to start trusting your ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’…doctor.”

“To a certain extent, maybe, but not entirely. If you trusted them completely, I guarantee you wouldn’t have to do so much ‘second guessing’. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s someone upstairs I really need to see,” Stanley suddenly announced and started striding off again, in the direction of the nearest elevator.

Mike Morton continued to stand there in the corridor, mulling over the infuriating fire officer’s latest chilly—downright frigid—words. Oh, they were ‘cool’, all right.

John was sitting up in his bed. His head—and his hospital gown—were hanging down and Miss McCall was busy changing the dressing on the wound in his back. The paramedic’s right leg was uncovered and locked—from his ankle to his hip—inside a brace of stainless steel rods and Velcro straps. His bare arms and shoulders were covered with dark blue bruises. Judging by the expression on his face, ‘sitting up’ was not the most comfortable position for him to be in.

The pained paramedic raised his wincing gaze and spotted his visitor. The young man’s head snapped up and his grimace immediately transformed into a grin. “Hey, Cap!”

The Captain couldn’t help but smile. “Jo-ohn…” he warmly acknowledged and stepped the rest of the way into the room. “Roy’s filling in for Don Lorey for a few hours, since Don filled in for him. He said to tell you he’d see you later on.”

“Say, Cap, speaking of Roy…Thanks for sending him down there yesterday…and for letting him stay with me in the treatment room last night. Are the rest of the guys here? I really need to thank them, too.”

“They’ll be up in just a bit. I asked ‘em to give us a few minutes—alone.”

Dixie planned to spend the weekend 'nursing' a certain one-armed doctor. Before heading over to Kel's place, the RN decided to drop by and pay one of her favorite paramedics a brief visit. Since her fireman friend's dressings needed to be changed, and since she was just sitting there, Dixie decided that she might as well make herself useful. She caught the 'alone' comment, glanced up and gave her patient's Captain a questioning look.

The expression on his youngest crewmember’s face suddenly shifted from ‘eternally grateful’ to ‘extremely apologetic’. “Sorry, Cap. Looks like I lost my helmet—again…and the radio. But I kept ‘em both strapped to me, just like you—”

“—Forget the equipment!” Hank quickly admonished and exhaled an exasperated gasp. “You damn near lost your life!” The Captain stopped speaking and started counting…to ten—repeatedly. “I tried to fill out a report, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. How could I possibly explain what happened to headquarters, when I don’t even understand it, myself? Would you care to explain what the hell went on down there in that canyon yesterday,” he ordered more than asked. “You’re not allergic to the antivenin. So you knew that rattler wasn’t going to kill you. You had no such assurance about the damn rocks. And yet, you chose the slide—anyway…”

John heard the extreme degree of frustration in his boss’ voice. At the moment, he was feeling more than a little frustrated himself, because he wasn’t at all sure that he could provide his Captain with an answer—leastways, not an adequate one. “You’re right, Cap. That rattler wouldn’t have killed me. It would have just made me ‘wish’ I was dead.” The paramedic paused. “I’m not allergic to the antivenin, but it seems my body had a rather violent reaction to the snake venom, itself. I can’t explain it to you, because, like you said, I don’t even ‘fully’ understand it. It has something to do with the rattler’s venom being a neurotoxin. So it affects your nerves. Well, when the antivenin finally started to kick in, and I woke up from the coma, each and every one of my nerve endings was being ‘affected’. The pain was excruciating. I tell yah, I never hurt so much—in my entire life.”

Hank remained confused. “Certainly, the doctor in ICU must’ve prescribed something for the pain…”

“Percocet?” his Captain repeated. “That’s supposed to be a pretty ‘potent’ narcotic. Isn’t it?”

The patient’s smile became even more bitter. “If you can keep it down. It comes in a ‘pill’ form. At the time, I was vomiting—continuously. When I asked them to give me something else for the pain—like a ‘shot’, they said it was too soon. I’d just been given 10mg of Percocet. I tried to tell them that I’d puked up the Percocet—about ten seconds after swallowing it—but nobody would believe me. Four unforgettable hours of unbelievable agony later, they brought me…another 10mg tablet of Percocet, which I promptly proceeded to throw up. That went on—all night. I just couldn’t go through that again, Cap. I just couldn’t…”

Dixie flashed the snakebite victim a deeply sympathetic look. “Dr. Tyler fired that idiot intern.”

John returned the RN’s smile, but remained adamant in his decision. “No offense, Dix, but there are more ‘idiot interns’, where that guy came from. And, after what I went through that night in ‘I See You’, I just wasn’t willing to chance it.” He paused again, to peer sheepishly up at his Captain. “Even though it meant that I had to disobey one of your direct orders…Sir.”

Stanley shifted his stance and cleared his throat. “Yes. Well…due to the ‘extenuating’ circumstance, I’m willing to disregard that.” His gaze shifted from understanding to stern. “Just see to it that it doesn’t happen again!”

“Aye, aye, Cap!” the remorseful—not to mention extremely relieved—paramedic readily promised.

Stanley turned to find his engineer’s smiling face leaning around the doorpost. “Is it okay if we come in?”

Kelly’s head appeared from the opposite side of the doorway. “Yeah. We’re here to visit our ‘stoned’ crewmate.”

Hank winced upon hearing Chet’s pun, but then motioned his guys in with a grin. “John, here, was just helping to clear some ‘things’ up…for my report.”

Marco stepped right up to the foot of their badly injured buddy’s hospital bed and then stood there, staring down at his straightened left limb. “Your left leg sure looks a whole lot better than it did yesterday.”

“Yeah,” Chet immediately chimed in. “But the rest of him looks a whole lot worse. Sheesh, Gage! Is there any part a’ your body that ain’t been bruised?”

“If there is, I haven’t found it…yet,” Gage tentatively told him. “Thanks for comin’ by, guys. And, thanks for getting those damn rocks off of me. You should a’ seen ‘em, Dix. These guys were incredible! They were down there in that canyon—and had me half dug out—before the dust could even settle.”

Dixie finally finished re-bandaging her patient’s perforated—and badly bruised—back. The pretty lady glanced up and flashed the young fireman’s gallant rescuers an appreciative smile. The nurse then gently lowered John back onto his hospital bed and moved down to begin changing the dressing on the cut on his bruised and broken right leg.

“Whatever happened to Pete?” the paramedic suddenly pondered. “Pete Turner…The drunk guy…” he further explained, upon noting his visitors’ totally lost looks.

“His wife showed up—with their lawyer,” Dixie rather reluctantly replied. “The lawyer claimed his client got drunk while he was sitting down there in that canyon…waiting to be rescued. The cops couldn’t prove otherwise. So Mr. Turner walked—er, staggered right out of the hospital…and went home with his wife…to sleep it off.”

Mike was the first fireman to find his voice. “Yah know, what that lawyer said just might be true.”

“I mean,” Stoker quickly continued, “you guys saw all those hairpin twists and turns. When you stop and think about it, that is about the only thing that would possibly explain how Mr. Turner could ever have managed to make it so far into the canyon, before finally leaving the road.”

His fellow firefighters glanced at one another, this time looking thoughtful. The engineer had presented a pretty valid point. But sti-ill…

“So…Pete walks away—scot-free,” their bed-ridden buddy pouted, sounding more than a little peeved—and pitiful. “And I’m stuck in here…flat on my back…for one whole week—and in a wheelchair for another two to three weeks. I tell yah,” Gage exhaled a resigned sigh and then flashed his fellow firefighters a glum grin, “it’s enough to drive a person to drink.”

The Captain and his engine crew couldn’t help but chuckle at their glum chum’s witty, and all too accurate, comment.

Dr. Kelly Brackett spent the entire weekend with his useless right arm in a sling. Well, maybe not the 'entire' weekend. ;)

Both the brooding doctor—and his right arm—returned to work bright and early Monday morning.

The eternal skeptic proudly and loudly proclaimed to his fellow colleagues—and anybody else who was willing to listen—that, for the first time in over three loooong years, his right arm and shoulder were pain-free.

Kel was extremely grateful to his chiropractor, Dr. Byron J. Franks, but the ‘healed’ physician felt even more indebted to Dixie, for reminding him to keep his big mouth shut…and his ‘umbrella’ open.

Author’s note: Yeah. I know. Really ba-ad pun. What can I say? I have obviously been hangin’ around the engine crew too long. lol