By Ross

The call had come in to L.A. County’s Fire Station 51 just prior to the shift change—a four-alarm structure fire.

Seven minutes and several miles later, Captain Hank Stanley and his men found themselves standing in front of a two-story industrial complex, donning Scott Air-Pacs instead of street clothes.

It was a sunny Sunday morning in May, and the flowering shrubs, lining both sides of the long concrete walkway leading up to the brick building’s main entrance, were in full bloom. The air was filled with a pungent perfume and the low drone of bees busily bobbing from one bright blue blossom to another.

Stanley studied the tranquil scene for a few moments. Where were the other fire companies? Come to think of it, there were no signs of panicked people or smoke visible anywhere, either.

The mystified man exchanged puzzled glances with the members of his crew before thumbing his HT’s call button. "L.A., Engine 51. Request an address confirmation on our last call…Thirteen-thirty-eight West Morrison?"

"Affirmative, 51."

The furrows in the confused Captain’s brow deepened. "10-4, L.A.. Engine 51 and Squad 51 are first in. No smoke or flames visible at this time. Will follow through and advise. Station 51 out twenty minutes."

"10-4, Station 51."

Stanley pocketed his portable radio. "All right…Gage, DeSoto, make sure the place is as empty as it looks. Kelly, Lopez, lets get a couple a’ lines ready and go see if we can find ourselves a fire."

The members of his engine crew began pulling hoses.

Firefighter Paramedic, John Gage, snugged the straps of his SCBA up and headed for the building’s front doors at a trot. Neither of the heavy glass portals would open for him. Banging and shouting, "Fire Department!" didn’t gain him access, either. So, he waited patiently on the porch while his partner, Roy DeSoto, pried their way in with the help of a forcible entry tool.

Their nostrils were not filled with the acrid smell of smoke and their ears were not assailed with the high-pitched blaring of fire alarms. Still, prior to entering—and per department regulations—the rescuers paused to pull on their facemasks.

"We’ll finish the sweep a lot faster if we each take a floor," Roy reasoned.

His partner nodded his approval of the plan. "You kin take one. I’ll take two."

DeSoto acknowledged his floor assignment with a slight nod as well, and then slyly tacked on, "Last one back to the Squad buys breakfast!"

His famished friend flashed him a wry grin. "No contest!"

The playful pair finished tugging their protective masks snugly into place. They then donned their helmets and—rather rapidly—ducked inside.

Hank Stanley, and two members of his Engine crew, entered the seemingly empty building and began stalking the phantom four-alarm beast, laying dual lines of limp hose down as they advanced.

************************************************

Mike Stoker engaged Engine 51’s pump and then stood there beside his beloved truck, waiting for the command to charge those lines. The Engineer’s attention suddenly shifted, from the front, to the right side of the building. Over the wailing of approaching sirens, he had clearly heard someone coughing.

A soot-covered civilian eventually staggered into view. The coughing fellow was wearing bright-blue coveralls and carrying a ten-pound, dry-chemical fire extinguisher.

Mike caught the coughing man’s attention and motioned him over.

"It’s…okay," the man managed to croak, between coughs. "I got…the fire…out."

Stoker ushered the disheveled fellow over to his truck and then sat him down on Big Red’s back running board. "What happened?"

"I decided to…take a break…My…coffee was…cold…I had a…stainless steel thermos…So I…lit one of the…Bunsen burners…" The man was almost too embarrassed to continue. "The thermos…exploded…knocked the burner over…ignited a bunch a’ papers…The lab…is pretty much trashed…But, I did it!" he proudly repeated. "I got the fire out!"

‘Well, pin a rose on you!’ Stoker sarcastically stated, solely to himself. Could anyone possibly do anything more stupid? The Engineer suddenly stiffened. "Please, tell me that you remembered to turn the burner off…"

But, the janitor just sat there, mute. The pained expression on the man’s soot be-smudged face spoke volumes, however.

**********************************

John Gage moved methodically down the second-floor hall, quickly and efficiently searching behind each and every unlocked office or laboratory door, leaving a very visible trail of large, white, chalk X’s in his wake.

The rescuer reached the end of the deserted hallway and was about to begin sweeping his way back to the stairwell when a jarring pain suddenly jolted him, right in the jaw. "Ah-ah!" he cried out and grimaced in absolute agony. The fireman felt like he’d just walked into a live electrical wire. The chalk fell from his fingers and both hands began reaching instinctively, and frantically, for the right side of his traumatized—and still grimacing—face. His clawing appendages pulled his helmet strap slack. He shoved his protective headgear back and then whipped the black rubber mask of his protective breathing apparatus off and out of his way.

A tentative touch revealed that the aching area was burning and swollen. The pain wasn’t subsiding, either. If anything, it seemed to be spreading—radiating out from a rather large raised welt. "What the…?" It was then that the rattled rescuer recalled all those blooming flowers…and the buzzing.

The pained paramedic snatched the dangling portion of his SCBA back up. Sure enough! There was a big ole bee…casually crawling across the clear plastic shield of his facemask. The firefighter’s brain shifted into first-aid mode. ‘Bee stings…bee stings…’ Ammonia was, supposedly, an antidote for bee venom. They carried ammonia inhalants. First, he’d beat his partner back to the Squad and then he’d break open the ‘smelling salts’.

Gage winced and coughed. It was then that he realized that the right side of his face wasn’t the only part of him that seemed to be burning. Something was really irritating his eyes, nose and throa—. "Damn!" the stung, and still stinging, sweeper declared upon discerning the cause of his latest discomfort.

Since gas has no odor of its own, a strong, foul-smelling chemical ‘odorant’ is added to alert people to any leakages that may occur.

Well, there was definitely a leakage somewhere…a big one! And, when the mixture of air and gas reached just the right ratio, the tiniest of sparks would—.

The rescuer received an even stronger jolt than the bee had just given him, as he realized he was now standing in the second floor hallway of a two-story BOMB! The paramedic cursed again and quickly whipped the handy-talky from the pocket of his turnout coat. The fireman was about to press the transmit button and sound the alarm, when it further dawned on him that, what he was holding, was no longer a portable radio, but a possible detonator. He would just have to scream his warning. The ex high school track star started racing towards the building’s—er, BOMB’s exit shouting, "Gas leak! Get out!" over and over—and at the top of his burning lungs.

****************************************************

The four firefighters on the floor below him heard—and heeded—their shift-mate’s shouted warning.

Stanley, Lopez and Kelly dropped the heavy coils of hose they were carrying and quickly exited the premises.

A breathless Mike Stoker met them at the doors.

No words were exchanged. All four members of Station 51's Engine crew just went stampeding off down the walkway, heading for the protective cover of their truck.

Roy had abandoned the remainder of his sweep and followed his fellow firefighters out of the building. However, his retreat had ended just outside the entrance. DeSoto stood there on the front porch, staring at the closed door to the stairs, willing his partner to appear.

"Go—Go—Go-o!" Gage urgently urged, upon exploding from the stairwell. "It’s gonna blo-ow!"

Roy spun back around and the two friends made a beeline for the bee-lined walkway, shedding their heavy air bottles as they fled.

Speaking of explosions…

Some brush in some electric motor somewhere (possibly in one of the complex’s clocks or water coolers) made poor contact with some corroded commutator right about then, and the resulting spark finally succeeded in igniting the explosive gas mixture. There was a resounding "KA-BOO-OOM!" as air was displaced at super-sonic speeds. An incredible amount of expanding energy was released.

The resulting explosive shock wave blew out the building’s brick walls and windows.

A tsunami of compressed air slammed into the fleeing firemen’s’ backs and knocked them off their feet.

Being closest to the blast meant that Johnny was flung the farthest. In fact, the shock wave hurled Gage a good twenty feet through the air.

An "Oo-oof!" escaped from the rescuer as his air-born body went bouncing off the roof of their Squad. Momentum then caused the still-falling firemen to go sliding down their vehicle’s shattered windshield and rolling off of its debris-strewn hood. ‘I won!’ the bruised, and now breathless, sweeper dazedly realized, just prior to hitting the ground. The paramedic’s un-helmeted head struck the pavement—hard, and he was knocked out—cold.

*******************************************************

It took John a while to recover from this latest jolt. But, eventually, his bruised brain began to process information again. That information brought back awareness, of both himself and his surroundings. He was lying on a very hard surface…with a very bad headache…which was being made very much worse by the very intense glare of a very bright light. There appeared to be a backboard under him and a sheet over him. Gage was grateful for the sheet. Because the only other things he seemed to be wearing were his watch and a cervical collar. He shut his already closed eyes even tighter and moaned. "Kin somebody…kindly…kill…the lights?"

Upon hearing his partner’s plaintive plea, Paramedic Roy DeSoto paused in his vital signs taking, to obligingly reach up and kill one of the exam room’s occupied table’s powerful overhead lights.

RN Dixie McCall crossed quickly over to the door and shoved the heavy portal open just wide enough to get a message out. "He’s awake!"

The four solemn uniformed figures standing just out in the hall, with their backs up against the wall, stiffened and straightened.

The nurse suppressed a smile and immediately moved aside, as Captain Stanley and his Engine crew came spilling into the room.

Dr. Kelly Brackett abandoned the illuminated x-ray panel he’d been staring at for the past five minutes and stepped back up beside his now conscious patient. "Johnny?"

The no longer squinting fireman’s eyes finally fluttered open. He found his favorite physician and his best friend staring anxiously down at him and flashed them both a faint, fleeting smile. "Exam Three.  Sunday. 1973. Richard Nixon. There was a gas explosion.  And—" the paramedic paused to smile smugly up at his partner, "—I won."

DeSoto exhaled an audible sigh of relief. "He’s gonna be all right," the paramedic informed Gage’s physician with a big, silly grin. Then he turned to his colleagues and confidently repeated his prediction. "He’s gonna be okay."

His concerned Captain and coworkers appeared equally relieved.

Kel was impressed. Impressed enough to pause in the middle of his neurological exam. Now, how could his patient possibly tell what room they were in? The exam rooms all looked exactly alike, to him.

But, before the good doctor could pose his good question, his patient came up with an excellent one of his own. "The rest of the guys…okay?"

Brackett removed the brace from the questioner’s neck and then casually invited, "See for yourself…"

‘That’s gotta be a good sign,’ the no-longer-immobilized medic mentally noted, as the C-collar suddenly fell away from his throat. Gage lifted his hurting head a little and took a cautious look around. The horizontal fireman was pleasantly surprised to find the rest of the guys right there in the room with him. His shift-mates appeared, to his trained eye, to still be a bit shaken up. But they, at least, were all vertical. He heaved an audible sigh of relief himself, and then let his burning eyes droop shut and his aching head drop back. The paramedic winced in pain. Man! His stung jaw was still really throbbing. Which reminded him…"Is there an ammonia inhalant handy?"

The three medical personnel in the room exchanged anxious glances. Fearing that their patient was about to blackout on them again, the trio sprang into action.

Roy raced over to one of the room’s many glass-doored cupboards and snatched a tiny white tube from a box of ‘smelling salts’. He then ran back up to the exam table and placed the requested item in Dixie’s open and extended palm.

The RN snapped the cloth-encased glass vial in two and then passed the prepared inhalant on to John’s doctor.

Brackett promptly passed the ammonia-drenched tube under the supine paramedic’s nostrils.

The results were quite dramatic.

The patient’s eyes snapped back open and he sat bolt upright. "Not for my no-ose!" he chastised, between coughs and grimaces. "For my bee sting!"

Seeing the IV in his right arm, John raised his left hand and directed his stunned doctor’s attention to a rather large, red, raised welt on the side of his jaw.

"That would explain why he removed his facemask," the stung man’s Captain suddenly realized—aloud.

"We owe our lives to a…bee?" Marco Lopez incredulously inquired.

Chester B. Kelly looked equally amazed. "I’ve heard of ‘saved by the bell’. But, ‘saved by the bee’?"

Brackett hadn’t noticed the bee sting before, because the cervical collar had been keeping it covered. The physician obligingly—and very gently—applied the ammonia to the proper part of his patient’s anatomy and then sternly ordered, "Now...lie down!"

The pleased look vanished from the paramedic’s swollen face and a frown quickly took its place. "But," he pouted, pitifully, "I like sitting up."

His doctor’s dark eyes narrowed. "Look…I may not have been able to find any broken bones or skull fractures. But, it’s a sure bet you have a concussion. You’ve been in an altered mental state for over—" the physician turned to the concussed fireman’s colleagues, expecting one of them to fill him in.

"Twenty years," Chet eagerly volunteered. "Wha-at?" the Irishman innocently inquired of his now snickering associates.

Gage’s first few attempts to flash the mustached comedian an annoyed glare failed, as even he couldn’t help but grin.

Brackett suppressed a slight smile himself and then turned to his patient’s partner, hoping for a more accurate estimation of the elapsed time of unconsciousness.

"Forty-five minutes," Roy readily responded, following a quick glance at his watch.

"You may as well get comfortable," Brackett advised his unhappy patient and immediately resumed his interrupted neurological exam. "Because we’re gonna be keeping you here—for observation."

"Roy can observe me while he’s buying me breakfast," John volunteered. "Can’t you, Roy…"

But, DeSoto remained silent.

Kel completed his exam and seriously contemplated his, apparently, anxious-to-leave patient’s suggestion over. Amazingly, the fireman had just passed his neuro’…and, in flying colors, no less.

DeSoto swallowed nervously as the doctor’s—and everyone else’s—attention suddenly shifted in his direction.

Gage shot his still-silent partner a desperately pleading look and further prompted, "Can’t you…ol’ buddy…ol’ pal…"

"Yeah," Roy rather uncertainly replied, at long last. "Sure...I guess."

John looked positively jubilant and quickly swung his long, sheet-covered legs over and off of the exam table. "Say, Dix’…kin you ditch this IV? Thanks. Kin anybody see my clo—" the paramedic’s swollen jaw suddenly went slack. He sat there in stunned silence, staring off across the room.

His personal effects had been tossed onto a counter. There was his department nameplate and badge…his pen and notepad…his paramedic’s assessment kit and arm patch…his black belt—and the ragged remains of his shirt, underwear and slacks. With the exception of his socks, they had completely shredded his uniform...again! Gage groaned aloud. Until someone brought him something to wear, he would not be leaving there. He groaned again and allowed his doctor and Dixie to ease him back down onto the cold, hard examination table.

Kelly turned to his quiet colleagues. "And we thought he was bugged before."

Gage emitted a third groan.

The rest of the guys responded to Chet’s pun with suppressed smiles.

"I’ll bring you a blanket and pillow in just a bit," the pretty nurse promised as she tenderly tucked their bugged patient back in.

"Why do you people always have to do that?" the paramedic pondered, pitifully.

"You know perfectly well why," Miss McCall patiently replied. But then went on to remind him, "This is an exam room. It’s S.O.P.. Before we can examine someone, we have to get them undressed. And, the only way to get a comatose victim of trauma’s clothes off—without moving him and risking further injury—is with a pair of these…" she crossed over to the counter to pull a blunt-tipped pair of scissors from the paramedic’s own assessment kit.

"I’ve already used up this month’s uniform allotment," Gage further groused.

"I tell yah what," his sympathetic nurse suddenly proposed. "We’ll make you a deal. If you’ll quit coming in here all…blown up and unconscious, we’ll quit cutting all your clothes off."

The frustrated fireman closed both his mouth and his eyes and then groaned...for a fourth, and final, time.

So-o…What do you think?

Deal?…Or no deal?

The End