“A Measure of Luck”
By Ross
L.A. County Fire Department paramedic, Roy DeSoto, exited Station 51’s dayroom and narrowly avoided tripping over his partner.
His friend, and fellow firefighter, John Gage, was kneeling on the floor, just outside the door, peering under their parked rescue squad.
Roy crouched down beside his ‘floored’ buddy. “What are you looking for? Maybe I can help you find it…”
“Ah-ahhh, I lost my lucky pen,” Gage groused and began circling the stationary vehicle—on all fours.
Roy’s right eyebrow arched upwards. ‘Ah-ahhh…his lucky pen.’
The pen his partner considered to be his ‘lucky charm’. The pen Johnny accredited with the uncanny ability to keep him ‘safe’ on the job. The same pen that had run out of ink three months back, but was still being carried in the right breast pocket of his partner’s uniform shirt.
DeSoto had suggested changing ink cartridges, but his friend was afraid that move might somehow mess with the pen’s ‘mojo’.
Roy exhaled a resigned sigh, before straightening up and following his crawling friend around the rear of their firetruck.
Gage reached the passenger door and reluctantly rose to his knees. “Kin you pull the Squad ahead about a foot for me? I wanna check under the tires, too.”
His buddy obligingly climbed up into the cab, ignited the truck’s engine, and moved it ahead the requested distance. Roy flicked the key back off and climbed back out. “When’s the last time you remember seeing it in your pocket?” he inquired, when his partner’s head popped up, the frown still in place on his face.
“This morning…right after roll,” Gage glumly replied. “I know I still had it on me when we started inventorying supplies—because I kept reaching for it, instead of my ‘other’ pen.”
“You mean, the one that actually writes?” DeSoto teased.
But Johnny just ignored the jibe. “I was sort a’ hoping it might a’ fell out while we were cramming everything back into the compartments…you know, when that first call came in. Ahhh, ma-an! I can’t believe I lost my lucky pen! I didn’t even realize it was missing, until just a few minutes ago.”
Roy shot his distraught shiftmate a sympathetic glance. “I sure hope you didn’t lose it while we were out on a run.”
The two of them had already responded to over a dozen calls that shift.
His partner’s lucky pen could’ve fallen from his pocket at any one of those locations.
John heaved a heavy sigh and finally forced a reply. “You and me, both!”
DeSoto’s countenance suddenly brightened. “Did you check the dayroom?”
Gage looked even glummer and sadly shook his head. They’d been kept so busy, he doubted if he’d even been in there twice, that entire day. He grabbed the Squad’s running board and used it to hoist himself up off the cold, concrete floor of the garage. He brushed the dust from the knees of his dark blue slacks, before finally straightening…somewhat.
Roy latched onto one his depressed partner’s sagging shoulders and started escorting him toward the Station’s combination rec’ room/kitchen area. “C’mon! I’ll help you look for it.”
The two men strolled into the dayroom and started shoving chairs around and tossing couch cushions. They even looked under the Station’s dozing mascot.
“Hey! Hey, c’mon, man!” Chet Kelly complained, as the pair continued to tear the entire rec’ room apart. “Quit messin’ up the place! I had it looking fairly decent in here, until you two showed up! Will yah stop throwin’ things around? Sheesh! You guys are like a two-man wrecking crew!” Unsuccessful in his attempts to stop the searchers, Chet devoted his efforts to undoing the damage.
Mike Stoker heard the commotion from the kitchen, and lowered his newspaper. “What did you lose?”
“Their minds!” Kelly quipped, and continued to follow along in the paramedics’ destructive wake, resituating displaced objects and rearranging moved furniture.
“I can’t find my pen,” Gage finally replied, following a frustrated gasp.
He and his searching partner crossed over into the kitchen.
Marco Lopez looked up from the Sports’ section he’d been perusing, and he and the Station’s engineer exchanged amazed glances.
“Was it a standard issue, green L.A. County Fire Department pen?” Marco calmly inquired.
“Yeah!” John exclaimed, his voice suddenly filled with excitement. “Why? Have you seen it?”
“Yeah. It’s right there, in your left pocket,” Mike bemusedly pointed out.
Gage’s face fell, as well as his glum gaze, which gradually dropped to his chest. The paramedic patted the green pen that was protruding from the left pocket of his uniform shirt. “This isn’t the one I’m looking for.”
“How can you tell?” Marco wondered. “I mean, they all look exactly the same, to me.”
“Because they ain’t exactly the same,” the disappointed paramedic promptly pointed out. “The one I’m looking for is out of ink and all dinged up.”
Chet Kelly was fixing flung couch cushions. Suddenly, he froze—right in mid-fix.
Mike and Marco appeared to find their fireman friend’s little revelation even more amazing—not to mention most amusing.
“If it’s all dinged up and out of ink, why are you even bothering to look for it?” Stoker further pondered, suppressing a smile all the while.
“Yeah,” Marco concurred. “There’s a 500-count box full of green pens, sitting on a shelf in the cabinet in Cap’s office. Instead of looking for your old pen, why don’t you just walk in there and grab a new one?”
“It’s his lucky pen,” Roy replied, when his silent partner failed to.
Kelly looked downright alarmed. His mustached face turned in the direction of the person with the missing ‘lucky’ pen. “I thought you said you weren’t superstitious…”
Gage gave his blabbermouth partner an annoyed glare, before turning to face Kelly. “I’m not! I’m not superstitious. But I’m not stupid, either. Even if it is purely a coincidence, that I haven’t been hospitalized since having that pen in my possession, I certainly don’t intend to ‘tempt’ fate.”
The paramedics continued to slide stuff across the kitchen counters and check behind pots and pans…and trashcans. They even made Mike and Marco move their feet.
Speaking of Mike and Marco…
The firemen were so fixated on the ‘demolition duo’, no one even noticed that Chet Kelly had slipped silently out of the room.
Chet raced through the garage and went bolting out the Station’s back door. The fireman never slowed his pace as he continued to race, across the parking lot and around the back of the brick building.
The rapidly moving fireman finally skidded to a stop, right in front of the Station’s Dumpster. The mustached man stood there in the alley for a few breathless moments, dreading what he might find—er, rather, what he might not find, when he lifted the bright green bin’s lid. He latched onto the heavy metal cover and raised it just enough to be able to peer inside.
Sure enough! His worst fears were confirmed!
The Sanitation Department crew had already came and went.
Johnny’s lucky pen was ancient history.
Or was it?
The devious Irishman’s gloomy green eyes suddenly glistened and he went scurrying off again, this time, in the direction of his Captain’s office.
Station 51’s paramedics completed their thorough search of the kitchen and slowly sauntered back into the rec’ area.
“It’s no use,” Gage glumly conceded and proceeded to plunk his posterior into the nearest chair.
Chet chose that moment to reenter the room. Kelly’s “No-o!” cry blended well with Gage’s groan.
“What the—?” the paramedic proclaimed and popped back up onto his feet to examine his soggy as—er, backside.
Speaking of seats and paramedics…
In his haste to pick up after the destructive pair, Chet had set his Danish down on the seat of that very chair.
Gage groaned again, as his probing fingers came back smeared with jelly—raspberry jelly, judging by the taste of it.
“Oh…Way ta go, John!” Chet chided and peered down at his squooshed snack in disgust.
Kelly wasn’t the only one who was disgusted.
Gage gazed disgustedly down at the remains of Chet’s Danish. It wasn’t the first time he’d sat on one of Kelly’s misplaced pastries. “Why do you insist on using ‘chairs’ for ‘plates’?”
Kelly’s only answer was a good question of his own. “Why don’t you ever look where you’re sitting?”
Gage returned to the kitchen, grumbling beneath his breath. The peeved paramedic tore a piece of paper toweling off the roll, wet it from the faucet, and began removing the sticky substance from the seat of his trousers. He kept tearing and wetting and removing until the toweling came away clean.
John tossed the wadded up paper balls into the trash and then turned toward the largest piece of furniture in the entire room. “Allow me to introduce you to a marvelous old invention. It’s called a table. You really should try it out sometime…soon!”
“The table wouldn’t a’ been any better. I’ve seen you and Roy sitting up there, too—plenty a’ times,” Kelly continued to tease, and traded mischievous glances with Mike and Marco. “No. I’m afraid no surface is ever completely safe from Old…Jelly Ass.”
“Oh yeah?” Gage griped. “We-ell, then perhaps you should just keep your food in your lap. I guarantee yah, that is one surface you’ll never catch me sitting on!”
Before Kelly could come up with a witty retort, the Station’s alarm sounded.
“Station 51…Station 36…Battalion 14…Structure fire…2787 Angelina Way…Cross streets: Chocolay and Howser…Two-seven-eight-seven Angelina Way…Time out: 18:36…”
The five firemen filed out into the Station’s parking bay and piled into their respective trucks.
“Station 51. KMG-365,” Captain Hank Stanley acknowledged, prior to passing his paramedics a copy of the call address. Then he crossed the bay and climbed up into Engine 51’s cab.
Both vehicles exited the garage, with their lights flashing. The two trucks turned onto the broad, five-laned street, which ran in front of the fire station, and went wailing off in the direction of the burning building.
The firetrucks’ drivers didn’t need to follow the dispatcher’s directions too closely.
A thick column of billowing black smoke could clearly be seen, rising up from the horizon, while they were still a good six blocks away.
When they finally arrived on the scene, a mere two minutes later, Hank Stanley was not surprised to find that they were ‘first in’. After all, Station 51 was in closest proximity to the call site.
The fire had to have been freely burning for some time before the alarm had come in. For several of the dwelling’s windows had already blown out, and flames were already poking up through its shingled roof.
Hank raised his hand-held radio to his lips and thumbed its send button. “L.A., Engine 51. We have a two-storied, wooden-framed apartment building one-quarter involved. The fire has already vented and we have flames visible through the roof. Request additional alarms and respond, at least, two ambulances to our location…”
“10-4, Engine 51…”
“Captain!” a rather frantic, middle-aged fellow came coughing up. “I can’t account for all the tenants,” he breathlessly continued. “Some could be out…some could still be inside.”
“Right, Cap!” his linemen acknowledged. The two men finished donning their SCBAs and started heading for Engine 51’s hose bed.
Hank escorted the coughing apartment manager over to the Squad’s back running board and sat him down. “Just stay put til the other paramedics get here. They’re probably gonna wanna give you some oxygen and check you over.”
The guy flashed the fireman a slight smile and seemed grateful for the chance to sit still.
To save time, the two paramedics had split up.
While Roy was quickly and efficiently searching the burning building’s ground-level apartments, John was busy sweeping its smoke-filled second floor.
Gage worked his way down the hazy, hot hallway, his search taking him closer and closer to the raging fire. He reached the apartment that was nearest to the inferno and was just about to bang on the door to 204, when his SCBA’s regulator suddenly stopped working. The experienced firefighter didn’t panic. Since it was now too smoky to see, he simply felt around for the breathing device’s bright red bypass knob. His fumbling fingers finally found what they’d been searching for and his air-tank’s airflow was switched over, from pressure/demand to constant pressure.
The searcher heard a loud ‘whoosh’ing sound and crouched beside the door to set his flashlight down on the floor. He needed both hands free, in order to snug up the rubber straps on his leaking facemask. John got his faceshield sealed and his helmet resituated. Then he latched onto his flashlight and started to straighten back up.
The deadly mixture of superheated air and combustible fire gases inside the un-searched apartment chose that very moment to ignite. There was a deafeningly loud explosion and the door to 204 was blown clean off its hinges.
The fireman’s body was buffeted by the blast and he was flung sideways. His helmeted head hit the hall wall—hard, and his recently re-sealed faceshield was jarred.
This time, John Gage was too dazed to notice that ominous ‘whoosh’ing sound.
Chet Kelly was following—er, trying to follow one of the searching paramedics down the burning building’s second-floor hallway. But, despite his best efforts, the gap between the two men had continued to grow. Heck, he would have had a hard time keeping up with the really swift sweeper, even if he wasn’t pulling a fully charged, ridiculously cumbersome, stiff and heavy hose along.
Kelly found himself having to crouch lower and lower, in order to remain below the thickening level of oily black smoke, which hovered just over his helmeted head.
The practically crawling fireman heard the apartment that was closest to the fire ‘flash’ and watched in horror, as its door blew out. He also witnessed his shiftmate being slammed into the hall wall by the force of the blast. ‘Oh gawd!’ he thought. ‘I just killed John!’ Why oh why oh why-y…did he have to go and throw that damn pen away?
By the time Chet reached the prone paramedic’s position, John’s low air alarm had already been ‘clang’ing for awhile.
Gage, who appeared to still be a bit groggy from his head-on collision with the hall wall, suddenly found himself unable to draw a breath.
The lineman saw the panicking paramedic reaching for his faceshield. Chet knelt on the nozzle and attempted to latch onto John’s wrists.
But the frantic fireman was able to free his forearms and rip the rubber mask from his face. John sucked in several deep breaths of the surrounding superheated air. His burning lungs immediately registered their displeasure by doubling the smoke-breather up in a fit of violent—and obviously painful—coughing.
Tentacles of flame, from the open door to 204, were now licking at both firefighters’ feet.
Chet grabbed the brass nozzle beneath his knees, opened up his charged line and quickly doused them. Then he latched onto the back collar of his fitfully coughing friend’s turnout coat and began retreating down the now completely smoke-filled hallway.
The mustached man met up with two of 36’s guys at the top of the stairs. He turned his charged line over to them. Then he hoisted his still hacking buddy up over his back, and quickly carried him down the hazy stairwell …and out of the burning building.
Kelly carted a still somewhat ‘groggy’ Gage over to where Squad 51 was parked, and sat his still coughing burden carefully down on the grass between the sidewalk and the curb. He shoved his helmet back and peeled his facemask off before dropping to his knees. Chet ditched his friend’s helmet and faceshield, as well. Next, he unbuckled and unhooked John’s air-pack harness and quickly set the SCBA aside. “Just lie back,” he gently urged and eased his breathless buddy the rest of the way to the ground. “Don’t go anywhere, babe. I’ll be right back with the respirator…”
John was breathing—and hacking—too hard to respond verbally. So he simply nodded.
Kelly scrambled to his feet and quickly crossed over to one of the truck’s left rear compartments.
Roy came out of the burning building just then, carrying an elderly woman in his arms. He’d found Mrs. Anita Spencer bed-ridden in her ground-floor apartment. The little old lady had recently fallen and bruised her hip. He glanced in their squad’s direction, and spotted a ‘grounded’ fireman. DeSoto saw the paramedic emblem on the fitfully coughing fellow’s discarded helmet, and his heart skipped a few beats. He handed his burden over to his colleagues from 36’s, and then made a beeline for Squad 51.
“Am I glad to see you!” Kelly exclaimed, as Roy came running up. “One of the second-floor apartments ‘flashed’. Gage, here, got his bell rung. He, uh, also managed to eat some smoke.”
DeSoto slipped out of his SCBA and dropped to his knees beside his dazed buddy. “Talk to me, Johnny!” he encouraged and started unclipping the clasps on his hacking partner’s coat.
Kelly had the respirator up and running and was about to place an oxygen mask over Gage’s sooty, tear-streaked face—when his hands were suddenly batted away.
“I-I’m okay,” John assured his caregivers, between bouts of violent, and clearly painful, coughing. “I’m…*cough, cough, cough*…good to g—” the fireman started coughing so fitfully, he couldn’t even finish his statement.
Roy groaned inwardly. He swore, his friend could be hemorrhaging from every orifice in his entire body, and he’d still insist that he was ‘good to go’. “Sounds like you’re good to go, all right…straight on over to Rampart.” He snatched the non-re-breather mask from Kelly and slipped it into place on his unhappy partner’s face. “Chet, we’re gonna need to immobilize him before we transport.”
Kelly took the hint and started trotting toward the rear of the truck.
John groaned and started reaching for his oxygen mask.
Roy slapped his hand away and continued his initial patient survey. “Don’t move your neck. Just respond with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Did you hit your head?”
“Yes. I gue-ess…” the patient reluctantly croaked, between coughs. It was clear that the victim’s vocal chords had also become irritated by the intense heat and oily black smoke.
“Did you lose consciousness at all?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so…”
Chet returned just then, toting their trauma box and a backboard.
John’s watering, red, smoke-irritated eyes widened with alarm and he made another attempt to reach for—and raise—his oxygen mask.
Kelly was able to drop the equipment he was carrying, just in time stop him.
DeSoto paused in his exam to glare down at Gage. “You try to touch that one more time,” he warned, looking every bit as stern as he sounded, “and your wrists will be tied down…right along with the rest of you.”
“Ahhh, ma-an!” Gage grumbled, between coughs. “Why? Why? Why-y…did I hafta go an’ lose my lucky pen?”
Chet Kelly swallowed hard and gave the back of one of John Gage’s tightly clenched fists some sympathetic pats. ‘Sorry, babe…but I honestly didn’t know the damn thing was your lucky charm.’ To him, it was just a stupid old, beat up, dried up pen.
“What happened, Kelly?” their Captain anxiously inquired, as he came trotting up.
“That last apartment he was sweeping suddenly ‘flashed’. He got blown—headfirst—into a wall. He had hit his bypass, so his regulator must a’ been givin’ ‘im some grief. And he must a’ got his bell rung, or somethin’, cuz he seemed sort a’ dazed. By the time I got to him, he was completely out of air. Ma-an, I tell yah, Cap…if he hadn’t a’ stooped down, to mess with his facemask, he’d a’ been standin’ right in front of that door when that apartment blew. It could a’ killed ‘im…” ‘I could a’ killed ‘im,’ Kelly mentally corrected, and gazed anxiously down at his still coughing coworker…and friend.
Hank shot his injured man, and his really worried-looking rescuer, a couple of concerned glances, and then turned to his senior paramedic. “How’s he doin’?”
DeSoto pulled the tips of his stethoscope from his ears. “His vitals are actually pretty normal…for him. But he really needs to go in and get checked out. As you can clearly hear, he swallowed quite a bit of smoke, and he could have a possible concussion.”
Gage’s red, watering eyes widened in horror. He grabbed onto his oxygen mask, pulled it clear of his soot-covered face, and opened his mouth to protest. But then he saw his partner’s piercing blue eyes turning into piercing blue daggers, and quickly clamped his jaws closed.
Their Captain couldn’t help but smile. “Why don’t you guys get him ready to transport. And I’ll go see if I can rustle you up some transportation.”
Roy replaced his coughing partner’s—er, his coughing patient’s oxygen mask…again.
John Gage gazed gloomily skyward for a few solemn moments and then emitted a muffled, “Damn it!”
Dr. Kelly Brackett greeted John Gage’s gurney as it was guided into his ER. The physician noticed the horizontal half of Squad 51’s paramedic team had his wrists restrained. “Did he become combative on the way in?”
Roy shook his head. “Uncooperative, actually. He just couldn’t keep his hands off his O2 mask.”
The physician witnessed the wordless exchange between paramedic and patient, and suppressed a smile. “We’re set up for him in Three,” he informed the two attendants who were towing Johnny’s stretcher, and turned to follow them.
DeSoto caught the departing doctor by the sleeve of his white coat. “Uh-uh, Doc…Kin I have a quick word with you?”
“Sure, Roy. What’s on your mind?”
“Johnny lost his ‘lucky’ pen today. He’s convinced himself that that battered and dried up old green pen has been keeping him out of the hospital. If he has to stay here, that’s just going to reinforce his ‘misguided’ belief. So, if there is any way you can possibly avoid admitting him, I’d—we’d sure appreciate it.”
Kel gave John Gage’s concerned partner a reassuring slug in the arm. “In that case, I’ll see what I kin do…for him a-and you.” The physician flashed the grateful looking fireman a wry grin and then headed off down the hall, in the direction of Exam Three.
“C’mon,” Roy invited, as Chet Kelly caught up to him in the corridor. “Let’s go get some coffee. We may be here…a while.”
Kelly gazed glumly down at the tiled floor beneath his feet for a few solemn seconds and then resignedly followed DeSoto into the doctors’ lounge.
Following a full half-hour of being x-rayed and poked and prodded, John Gage found himself sitting on the edge of an exam table in Treatment Three, in an open-backed hospital gown, having his lungs listened to—for the umpteenth time.
His physician finally pulled the tips of his stethoscope from his ears. “Your lungs are in relatively good shape. No fractures, or any signs of a concussion, either,” the doctor further determined. Kel gave John Gage’s partner a knowing glance and then nodded in his head nurse’s direction.
John’s lower jaw fell open, as Dixie suddenly dropped his clothes into his lap. He gazed down at his uniform…and then up at the nurse…in both shock and disbelief. “Yah mean…I’m free to go? I’ve been cleared for duty?”
“That’s ri-ight,” the pretty RN replied. “We’re releasing you…into Roy’s protective custody. But, if you don’t cooperate—fully—with him, I guarantee you’ll be back in here so fast, that hard head of yours will be spinning. Understood?”
“Understood,” Gage sheepishly acknowledged, his voice still sounding incredibly hoarse.
“Goo-ood!” the nurse sternly summed up.
The chastised paramedic cringed.
Miss McCall just stood there, smiling sweetly.
Kel shot the ‘whip cracking’ woman an amused glance and then turned back to their outpatient’s partner—er, custodian. “You’ll need to take his vitals and run neuro checks on him every hour. Every half-hour would be even better, but I realize how busy you guys can get sometimes.”
“Will do, Doc!” DeSoto assured him.
“Also, ausculate his lungs every two to three hours and check his air passages for increasing edema. If his cough worsens, or if he starts showing any signs of dehydration, start him on IV fluids and haul him back in here—STAT!”
“Right!” the fireman PM further acknowledged.
The physician flashed his already half-dressed ex-patient a warm smile. “Take care out there, Johnny.”
“I fully intend to,” the freed fireman wittily remarked. He slid off the exam table to pull his slacks up and tuck his shirttails in. “Thanks, Doc!…Di-ix,” he added, a little less enthusiastically, and quickly buckled his belt.
Miss McCall continued to just stand there, smiling sweetly.
John finished pulling on and tying his shoes. He flashed the doctor and his head nurse a nervous smile and then turned to his partner. “Get me outta here,” he quietly pleaded, and quickly snatched up his assessment kit.
The physician watched as the two firemen suddenly fled from the room. Kel couldn’t help but grin. “I think you scared him, Dix…”
The still-smiling nurse heaved a contented sigh. “I certainly hope so!”
The pair of fleeing firemen met up with Kelly in the corridor. Each of them picked up a piece of equipment, and then they all started heading for the ER's exit.
The trio reached the hospital parking lot. They crossed quickly over to the Squad, packed their equipment cases away and then piled in, themselves.
“Move over,” Kelly requested, once the truck's doors were slammed.
“You move over,” Gage countered, his voice cracking.
“I can’t. Roy needs room to drive.”
“Well, I can’t, either. My elbow’s already jammed up against the door.”
“It’s okay, Chet,” Roy assured his middle passenger. “You can slide over. I have plenty of room…to drive.”
Kelly begrudgingly slid his butt a little to the left. “There! Are you happy now?”
“I was perfectly happy before. You’re the one who wanted me to move.”
Kelly used his right knee and shoulder to nudge his fellow passenger further away from him. “For bein’ so skinny, you sure take up a lot a’ room.”
Gage nudged him right back, and none too gently, neither. “Will you kindly keep your arms and legs to yourself!” he ordered more than asked.
Chet feigned wounded feelings and appealed to their driver. “Roy, your partner’s picking on me.”
DeSoto exhaled a weary sigh, as Kelly’s latest comment launched a whole heated ‘who was picking on who’ discussion. He tried his darnedest to tune the racket out, and turned the key in their truck’s ignition. ‘Sheesh! These two are like a couple a’ kids.’ Actually, on second thought, they were worse than a couple a’ kids. At least children sometimes behaved themselves.
“Squad 51…What is your status?” the dispatcher suddenly spoke up, putting an abrupt end to the argument.
John snatched up their dash-mounted radio’s mic’ and thumbed its send button. “L.A., Squad 51 is available on follow up to Rampart General.”
“10-4, Squad 51…Standby for a response…” Several silent seconds passed, and then their radio began ‘bleep’ ing…and muted tones began sounding.
The trio traded grave glances, as muted tones continued to sound.
Kelly counted at least eight alarms, and then they all listened, as the dispatcher proceeded to announce the lo-ong string of companies that were being called out.
“…traffic accident at the eight-mile marker on the Ghasten Freeway…between the Hearst and Paloma on-ramps…Witnesses report over a dozen vehicles are involved…the eight-mile marker on the Ghasten Freeway…between the Hearst and Paloma on-ramps…Ambulances are responding…Time out: 20:02”
The three firemen exchanged even solemner glances.
There were few things worse than a freeway pile-up.
John finished jotting the call address down and re-thumbed their radio’s send button. “10-4, L.A….Squad 51 responding with Engine 51.”
The trio donned their helmets and snugged their chinstraps up.
Roy hit their truck’s lights and siren, and they rode to the scene…in silence.
Squad 51 arrived at the South end of the incident within a matter of minutes.
DeSoto had purposely taken the Paloma Exit, so their truck would be parked upwind of the accident.
The three of them piled out, donned their turnout coats, and then began pulling equipment from the Squad’s side compartments.
Gage slid a backboard from the back of their truck. Then he picked up their Bio-phone and the trauma box, and went trotting toward the first couple of wrecked cars.
Kelly followed along. He had a half-board tucked up under his arm, and he was also toting a Stokes, and towing their respirator.
DeSoto had their drug box, their cardiac monitor, and their defibrillator.
“I think we should give ‘The Galloping Greyhound’, here, some of our gear,” Chet proposed, as he found himself lagging behind his swiftly-moving buddy, for the second time that shift. “Yah know, weigh ‘im down…maybe slow him up a little?” he continued to tease, all be it, a bit breathlessly.
The lead rescuer crouched down to peer into the first of two overturned vehicles. “Oh. Ha ha, Chet.” John paused to draw a breath. “Yah know, you really should consid—” the fireman’s face filled with alarm, as he suddenly stopped both speaking—and breathing! His lungs felt like he’d just inhaled liquid fire. Gage grimaced, as the first agonizing wave of pain dropped him to his knees. He let go of his equipment and clutched at his chest, as a second wave of excruciating pain drove him the rest of the way to the ground.
DeSoto dropped his heavy cases, too. “No! Don’t!” he shouted, latching onto the collar of Kelly’s turnout coat and preventing him from stooping down to Gage’s level. From what he’d just witnessed, Roy realized they must be dealing with a fast-acting gas of some sort.
This section of the freeway ran through a small valley. One of the vehicles involved in the accident up ahead must’ve been transporting a hazardous material—and it must be leaking out and collecting down in the valley. The poisonous gas also had to be heavier than air, as it seemed to be lying in a pocket close to the pavement.
Gage had obviously gotten ‘gassed’ when he’d crouched closer to the ground.
Chet glared at his fellow firefighter as though he really had lost his freakin’ mind.
“There’s gotta be some kind a’ gas down there!” the paramedic patiently explained. “We’re gonna hafta hold our breath before we go down to Johnny’s level—or we’ll be joining him on the ground!”
Kelly nodded his understanding.
Both rescuers drew in some deep breaths—and then held them.
Speaking of Johnny…
Gage’s lungs weren’t the only part of him that seemed to be on fire. His nostrils, and both of his brown eyes, were also burning—something awful! Suddenly, he felt two sets of hands under his arms, and he was hauled to his feet. The ‘gassed’ fireman’s blurry vision continued to tunnel out on him, however, until the total lack of oxygen to his brain finally caused him to completely lose consciousness.
Roy and Chet released their held breaths. The rescuers nearly went down, as their burden suddenly sagged between them. The two men caught their collapsing colleague, regained their balance, picked up the dropped drug box and Bio-phone, and then began carting the unconscious fireman off in the direction of the Squad…with the respirator in tow.
It was slow going. Mainly, because Roy kept stopping every few feet, to set down their drug box and radio, and administer AR.
Engine 51 pulled up, just as the retreating trio of rescuers was about to reach their parked truck.
“Cap!” DeSoto shouted out, between life-giving breaths. “There’s a pocket a’ poisonous gas up there!…(breath)…Must be some pretty bad stuff…(breath)…Cuz’ Johnny just got one whiff of it…(breath)…and he’s in full respiratory arrest!”
“Roger that, Roy!” his Captain acknowledged. “All right! I want everybody to fall back—at least—fifteen hundred feet!” the fire officer ordered, before raising Big Red’s dash-mounted radio’s mic' to his frowning mouth. “L.A., Engine 51 is on scene. We’re dealing with some kind of toxic gas leak. So we’re gonna need a Haz-Mat team out here. Advise all companies responding to the 8-mile marker, Ghasten Freeway incident to approach upwind. Air-packs should be donned immediately upon arrival and a 1,500-foot perimeter should be maintained until further notice. We also have a Code I. Respond an additional Squad and another ambulance to this location.”
“10-4, Engine 51…” the dispatcher promptly came back.
DeSoto discontinued AR, once again, and the remaining distance between them and the Squad, was quickly covered. The vertical paramedic reached out and pulled its closest door open.
The drug box and Bio-phone were placed in the center of the truck’s seat.
The unconscious paramedic was propped up against its open passenger door.
Roy connected a non-re-breather mask to the end of the respirator’s hose line and attached an Ambu-bag to it. Then he set the O2 tank down on the seat, on top of their other equipment. “Get in!” DeSoto ordered, and bore his non-breathing buddy’s full weight across his right shoulder, so Kelly could climb up into the passenger’s seat.
Once Chet was situated, the blond paramedic picked his partner’s limp and lifeless body up and placed it in the mustached man’s lap. Roy turned the valve on their O2 tank’s regulator to wide open and then slipped a form-fitting oxygen mask over his partner’s nose and mouth. “Bag him!” he breathlessly requested and shoved his friend’s long, limp legs clear, so he could close the door.
“I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry,” Kelly kept muttering, to the motionless fireman, cradled in his arms. Upon hearing Roy’s shouted order, Chet reluctantly pulled both of his arms free. He grabbed Gage’s O2 mask with his left hand and kept it pressed firmly in place. His right hand grasped the Ambu-bag and he obediently began squeezing it. ‘One—one thousand. Two—one thousand. Three—one-thousand…’
Roy raced around the front of the Squad and slipped in behind the wheel. Dusk was now rapidly descending upon them. So he flicked the truck’s headlights on, before igniting its engine, and ramming its tranny into reverse.
Both of Station 51’s firetrucks began to carefully, but rapidly, retreat—about 1,500 feet.
“Tilt his head back just a bit,” DeSoto advised. “It’ll open up his airway a little more.”
Chet did as directed. The fireman felt their unconscious friend’s chest rising and falling from the force of the Ambu-bag’s contractions.
Following a few dozen forced breaths of pure oxygen, Gage’s chest suddenly heaved all on its own.
The Ambu-bagger’s vision blurred. “Hey, Jo-ohn…I thought you said you would never sit in my lap…”
“Shut…Shut…up…Chet,” John quietly requested, his already weak, and incredibly hoarse, voice muffled even more by the oxygen mask that was being kept tightly clamped over his nose and mouth.
Kelly’s bushy eyebrows arched upwards. “Well! What d’yah know! Sounds like Old Jelly Ass, here, just might make it, after all!”
“Shu—Shut up…Chet,” the paramedic seated in his lap promptly repeated.
His rescuers turned to one another and traded grins.
Stoker braked Big Red to a stop, just outside the allotted safety perimeter.
Hank Stanley—and his crew of two—climbed down from the Engine and started donning their SCBAs. The Captain also pulled a pair of binoculars and a small handbook from one of the pumper’s side compartments.
DeSoto threw his driver’s door open, baled out of the truck and began grabbing their equipment cases. “Keep bagging him, Chet!”
With his air-pack now in place, and his regulator switched over to positive pressure, Stanley stepped up to Squad 51’s open passenger window. “How’s he doin’?” the Captain anxiously inquired—for the second time that shift—his voice also sounding somewhat muffled by his air mask.
“He’s regained consciousness and is breathin’ on his own,” Roy relievedly replied, as he came stepping up with the Bio-phone and their drug box. “I’ll know more, once I’ve taken his vitals and contacted Rampart.”
Stanley just stood there for a few solemn, silent moments, staring out at the injured young fireman through the clear plastic shield of his facemask. If the Captain didn’t know better, he might’ve found himself buying into this whole ‘lucky’ pen business, himself. He gripped Gage’s right wrist with a gloved hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Take it easy, pal. Roy, here’ll have you at the hospital in no time.”
John’s eyes were burning too badly to open them, and speaking had also produced a great deal of discomfort. So the paramedic simply nodded. ‘The hospital. Great!’ He positively dreaded having to face Dixie again. ‘Why’d I hafta go and lose my lucky pen?’
Hank gave the young man’s wrist a final squeeze of reassurance and then turned to Lopez. “Marco, my man! What d’yah say we go see what we’ve got?” the Captain proposed, and gave the DOT’s ‘Emergency Response Guidebook’ in his right coat pocket a couple a’ pats.
The lineman smiled behind his faceshield and then followed the fire officer off down the freeway.
With the help of that handy little handbook, they would—hopefully—be able to identify the spilt toxin, and then safely contain it.
Hank whipped his leather gloves off and thumbed through the DOT’s guidebook. He found the number and began reading aloud. “Nitric Oxide—a Class A. poison. At high concentration NO converts to NO3 upon exposure to air, within a few seconds. NO3 is also a lethal gas, whose mode of action is to cause fatal reflex choking.”
Well, that would certainly explain why none of the people they’d seen down below were moving. They were all dead…including the two CHP officers who had initially responded to the multi-car pileup.
The Captain exchanged a grave glance with Lopez. Then he pocketed the handbook and pulled out his HT. “L.A., Engine 51. We have a Class A. poison leak here…with multiple Code F’s. Nitric Oxide. DOT # 1660…”
“Rampart Base,” Dr. Brackett quickly came back. “Go ahead, 51…”
Kel listened, attentively, as Roy DeSoto read off his 28-year-old, male victim’s vitals.
The paramedic then proceeded to inform them that his patient was his partner, and that Johnny had just been gassed with Nitric Oxide.
The physician’s face filled with surprise and his dark eyes about doubled in size. He saw one of his colleagues standing just outside the Base Station, and motioned him in. "Nitric Oxide poisoning, Joe!"
========================================================
CLASS "A" POISON GASES - Rescue Teams must have air packs (SCBA).
WARNING: At levels of 1,000 to 750 parts per million, 15 seconds exposure to nitrogen tri-oxide can prove lethal by reflex choking, if not rescued.
Nitric oxide converts to nitric acid when in contact with moisture, making it extremely irritating to the eyes, nose and throat.
========================================================
ROUTE OF ENTRY:
[X] Skin Contact
[X] Skin Absorption
[X] Eye Contact
[X] Inhalation Acute
[X] Inhalation Chronic
[X] Ingestion
WARNING: CLASS A. POISON GASES
Extremely dangerous if inhaled, due to blood poisoning.
A fatal dose of Nitric Oxide, a CLASS A POISON, may be
inhaled with no smell or warning symptoms during exposure.
tri-oxide (NO3) which is also a CLASS A POISON.
SECTION III - First Aid Measures
============================================================
Eyes: Wash promptly with copious amounts of water
for 15 minutes keeping eyelids apart. - Call a
physician. Repeat eye wash.
Skin: Wash immediately in emergency shower, then
remove contaminated clothing and shoes. - Call a physician
immediately. Wash affected area with mild soap. Treat high
exposure as for inhalation. - Do not use ointments. - Wash
contaminated clothing before re-use and discard shoes.
The physician’s rapidly scrolling finger finally reached ‘Inhalation’, and he immediately began reading aloud. “Inhalation Hazards: Nitric oxide (NO) is a potentially lethal Class A. poison which decomposes in air into nitrogen tri-oxide (NO3), also a potentially lethal Class A poison. The first prevents oxygen transport by the blood while the second seriously impairs lung function or causes reflex choking to death. Odor is not a reliable warning and many symptoms are delayed, so a fatal overexposure may not initially exhibit dangerous symptoms. There is a high degree of synergy in their toxicology making prompt treatment crucial.
Carry (do not allow to walk) victim to fresh air. Have victim breathe fresh air (oxygen is an antidote) in all cases, as hard as possible. Give oxygen immediately. Call an ambulance and advise them of case of blood poisoning due to nitric tri-oxide. Give artificial respiration with supplemental oxygen, if breathing stops. Do not delay the patient's transport to the hospital. ALL CASES OF SUSPECTED EXPOSURE REQUIRE HOSPITALIZATION, BECAUSE SYMPTOMS MAY NOT BE IMMEDIATELY APPARENT. EARLY EVALUATION AND TREATMENT ARE CRUCIAL.”
“Did you get all that, 51?” Kel anxiously inquired, and finally released the call button.
Roy pressed the send button on their Bio-phone’s handset. “Squad 51…10-4, Rampart. We’ll pump pure oxygen into him as fast as we can!” He released the call button and addressed Kelly. “Keep bagging him, Chet! Don’t bother counting—just squeeze! We’ve got to force all the pure oxygen we can into him!”
Chet nodded and immediately did as directed.
Five oxygen-filled minutes later…
Roy motioned that it was okay for the Ambu-bagger to slow down…some.
“Whoa-oah…” John Gage grinned and broke into his own loopy rendition of a current Top 40 tune by some British rock band. “Love is like oxygen,” the paramedic sang, beneath his fogged up O2 mask. “You get too much, you get too high. Not enough and you're gonna die-ie-ie-ie-ie,” he continued, until he, mercifully, ran out of air.
His audience winced in aural agony.
“Speakin’ a’ dyin’…” Chet suddenly chimed in. “Your ‘high’ notes are killin’ us here.”
John’s caretakers traded grins, as the ‘high’ crooner began to giggle…and cough…at the same time.
“Keep breathing—deeply!” DeSoto requested, prior to passing Kelly several plastic bottles of sterile water. “Chet, you wanna start irrigating his eyes,” he ordered more than asked. “Rampart wants us to flush them for, at least, fifteen minutes. Brackett is also asking for an update on vitals…” he added, and stuck the tips of his stethoscope back in his ears.
Chet nodded and promptly pulled the rubber stopper from one of the plastic bottles in his lap. He pried their patient’s bloodshot left eye open and then used his right thumb and index finger to keep it that way. “Hopefully, this’ll help,” he muttered, and began pouring the sterile water into John’s already watering eye.
Gage drew a deep breath of pure oxygen into his lungs and tried his best to ignore the intense burning in his pried-open peeper. Instead of groaning, the hurting—and still high—young man grinned again and immediately launched into an old Johnny Nash song, “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see allllllll obstacles in my way. Gone are the da-ark clouds that had me blind. It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny da-ay…”
The eye irrigator suppressed a slight smile.
It was now almost totally dark out.
“Whatever you say, babe,” Kelly mumbled beneath his breath. “Whatever you sa-ay…”
By the time Mike Stoker finished adjusting Engine 51’s spotlights, the whole surrounding area was illuminated bright as day. He beamed a smile of satisfaction at his little light display, and then climbed down from Big Red’s hose bed, to help Chet irrigate Johnny’s eyes.
“Michael, charge the pump!” their Captain ordered, as he came trotting back up. “And then, grab a reel line!”
“Aye, aye, Cap!” Michael acknowledged. The engineer placed the nearly empty plastic bottle in his hands down on the pavement and scrambled to his feet.
Stanley dropped to one knee beside his horizontal crewmember. “How yah feelin’?”
“Like a canary…in a coal mine,” the paramedic wryly replied.
Hank couldn’t help but grin. “At least your sense of humor is still intact. Think you kin stand?”
“Sure!” John readily replied. “Probably…with a little assistance.”
Again, the fire officer was forced to smile. He gave the game young fireman’s un-IV’ed arm an appreciative pat and then turned to DeSoto and Kelly. “Pick ‘im up and follow me.”
Roy’s bottom jaw dropped open. Brackett had just ordered IVs. The firefighter/paramedic was contemplating which of his two bosses’ instructions he should follow first, when he suddenly realized that his colleagues had returned from their reconnaissance mission—alone. DeSoto dropped what he was doing, and promptly obeyed his Captain’s cryptic order.
Chet set his nearly drained bottle of sterile water aside and rendered his assistance.
“Don’t try to walk, or anything,” Roy advised, as he removed the O2 mask from their patient’s face. “Just let us carry you. Okay?”
“Okay,” Gage agreed. Once again, he felt two sets of hands under his arms, and he was hoisted up off his bright yellow drop sheet. “Whoa-oah,” he exclaimed, as a tsunami of dizziness suddenly washed over him.
Once more, his supporters nearly went down, as their burden’s knees suddenly buckled. The two men caught their collapsing colleague, regained their balance, and headed off in the direction their Captain had disappeared in.
Hank Stanley grabbed a bottle of dish soap from one of the Engine’s side compartments. The Captain stepped over to the edge of the freeway and had his men line up alongside of him, just off the pavement. Then he snugged his turnout coat’s collar up about his neck and turned to his Engineer. “All right, Mike. Hose us down!”
Stoker appeared somewhat astonished by the order, but eagerly obeyed. Perhaps a little too eagerly. He had to shut down his line and back the pump’s pressure off a bit.
“Okay. Everybody, turn around!” the Captain requested, following a rather lengthy—and extremely wet—frontal assault from their engineer’s open reel line.
The group obediently did an about face.
“I get high…with a little help from my friends,” Gage, who was still strung out on pure oxygen sang, whilst they were being thoroughly doused. “I get by…with a little help from my—Whew!” the singer suddenly declared, right in mid-verse. “That…That’s co-old!”
“And it’s about to get even colder,” his Captain solemnly predicted. Stanley stepped up to where DeSoto and Kelly stood, still supporting their chilled chum, and started to strip the dark-haired paramedic’s clothes off. “Marco, give me a hand, here. We gotta suds these three down.”
Lopez accepted the bottle of soap his Captain passed to him and began squirting its contents all over his three buddies’ dripping bodies.
“Cap, Gage is the one that got gassed,” Kelly was quick to remind the man who was now removing his clothing.
Their Captain paused, to pose a couple of quick questions. “Were you guys wearing your gloves?”
Gage’s supporters glanced thoughtfully at one another, and then, reluctantly, shook their heads.
“Did you put your equipment down to pick him up?”
This time, the unhappy pair was forced to nod.
“There yah go!” their Captain exclaimed and continued to relieve John’s rescuers of their clothing. “Exposure by skin contact. That stuff was all over him and—when you went down to his level—it got all over you, and the handles of those cases.”
Hank’s three ‘exposed’ men wordlessly endured the rest of their human car wash.
Stanley and Lopez suds the unhappy trio up—twice.
And Stoker readily ran them through their rinse cycles.
While it was clear that the two supporters were not finding the whole ‘hose down’ experience a pleasant one, the person they were supporting appeared to be even more miserable.
“How yah doin’, John?” Hank finally inquired, following a full five minutes of silent sudsing and rinsing.
“We-ell, Cap…my throat feels like I been snackin’ on razor blades. My eyes feel like somebody’s been usin’ ‘em for ashtrays. And my chest feels like someone lit two charcoal grills inside of it. Other than tha-at…I’m doin’ ‘just dandy’.”
Stanley found his ‘gassed’ crewmember’s sarcastic comeback both alarming and amusing…but mostly, alarming.
Apparently, the chilly shower was having a sobering effect on their young friend.
“There! That oughtta do it,” Hank determined, once the last of the soapsuds had disappeared from the three shivering men’s bodies.
Marco had garnered some nice, dry blankets from the first string of recently arrived ambulances, and he draped one over each of his stripped shiftmates’ shivering shoulders.
Speaking of arriving ambulances…
Two attendants came trotting up to the soggy group, with a stretcher in tow.
Roy and Chet lowered their cleaned up patient onto the gurney, strapped him down, and then followed along, as he was immediately rolled away.
“Chet!” the Captain called after them.
Kelly stopped and glanced back over his shoulder.
“I want you to ride in with Roy and John, and get yourself checked out!”
“Right, Cap! I gotta finish irrigating Gage’s eyes, anyway.”
Mike placed the stiff, red, rubber hose in his hands on the pavement and started heading for Engine 51, to shut the pump down.
Stanley snatched the discarded reel line up and used it to spray his engineer’s backside.
Mike emitted a ‘shriek’ of surprise and spun rapidly around—only to be sprayed in the face.
Stoker stared down at his completely drenched self for a few moments, suppressing a smile all the while. “Yah mean, I was lookin’ a little ‘too dry’,” he quickly corrected.
“Yeah,” his Captain agreed, with a wry, sly grin. “That, too.”
Mike released the smile he’d been suppressing and then turned back toward his truck.
Hank glanced off down the dark freeway, in the direction of the pile-up, and his grin vanished. “Da-amn!”
Marco heard his Captain’s quiet curse and gazed glumly off in the same direction. Da-amn! was damn right!
Instead of pulling trapped motorists from their wrecked cars, and helping Roy and John treat and transport the injured, Hank and his engine crew had had to settle for trying to save one of their own.
The Haz-Mat teams were arriving on the scene, already sporting their protective neoprene suits. They would be spending the rest of the night containing the leak, and retrieving dead bodies…lots and lots of dead bodies.
The Captain had counted at least twenty-two casualties. Hank turned around in time to watch Gage’s gurney being loaded into the back of one of the dozen or so waiting ambulances.
Hopefully…there wouldn’t be a twenty-third.
Twenty minutes later, in Rampart General’s Emergency Receiving…
Stanley, Stoker and Lopez strolled into the doctor’s lounge and found the missing member of their engine crew.
Kelly, who was now dressed in surgical scrubs, was seated at a small table. There was a green pen in his right hand, and he was mindlessly scribbling away on a thick pad of paper. He stopped the moment that he spotted them, and shoved the pen out of sight. “How’d you guys get here?”
“The same way you got here,” Mike responded. “In the back of an ambulance.”
“The Station’s been ‘stood down’,” his Captain explained. “We’ve all been relieved of duty until we’ve all been cleared for duty. What’s the latest on John?”
Chet shrugged. “They whisked all three of us right into treatment rooms, as soon as we got here. I got poked and prodded for a while, and then some lady vampire showed up and drew a few pints of blood out of my arms,” he pouted and pointed to the bandages in the crooks of his elbows. “I haven’t seen either one of them since. But Dixie promised she’d let me know as soon as they found out anything.”
The Captain stared thoughtfully down at the pad of paper for a few seconds. Then he pulled a green pen from the left breast pocket of his uniform. “Here. I’ll trade you,” he offered, and placed the writing utensil down on the tabletop. “Mine’s already half empty.”
Kelly pulled his hidden hand out from under the table and swapped pens with his Captain.
A couple more chairs were dragged over to the scribbler’s table, and the three new arrivals sat down.
“That’s a nice gesture, Chet,” Marco Lopez admitted, immediately catching on to what Kelly was up to. “But wouldn’t your time be better spent looking for John’s real ‘lucky’ pen?”
“Unless, of course, he knows that it can’t be found,” Mike Stoker slyly tacked on.
Realizing that the ‘jig’ was up, Kelly reluctantly came clean. “My foot slipped on something when I was crossing the parking bay this morning, on my way to the latrine. It was a beat up old pen, with a busted clip. The darn thing didn’t even write! So I tossed it in the trash. I noticed the bag was pretty full, so I took it out to the Dumpster. When I heard Gage was missing his ‘lucky’ pen, I tried to get the trash sack back. But the garbage guys had already beat me to it…”
“I suspected as much, when you came into my office earlier, and wanted to know if you could get something out of the supply cabinet. My suspicions were confirmed, when I saw the look on your face, at that last fire.”
“Keep scribbling,” Marco suggested. “Just let me know when your wrist gets tired, and I’ll take over.”
“We can all take turns,” Mike joined in. “That way, nobody’s hand has to cramp up.”
Chet shot each of his shiftmates a look of undying gratitude. “Gee…thanks, gu—”
“—There you are!” a young woman’s—er, lady vampire’s voice relievedly exclaimed. The girl stomped the rest of the way into the lounge and directed an annoyed glare at Stanley, Stoker and Lopez. “I need to draw some blood—for analysis.”
The three blood donors stared nervously down at the large amount of vials in the little box, that rested on the tray she was toting.
Hank’s anxious gaze returned to the girl. “You obviously intend to do a great deal of analyzing.” ‘Maybe she is ‘drinking’ the stuff?’ he silently surmised.
The lab technician completely ignored the Captain’s sarcastic comment. She was too busy observing the bizarre behavior of one of his men. ‘Perhaps one of the toxin’s side effects?’ she thoughtfully reasoned, as the ‘exposed’ person kept right on, mindlessly, scribbling away.
Treatment Room Three was a blur of activity…literally.
Dr. David Wright had ordered that John’s blurry eyes be re-irrigated. The opthamologist had then squirted a few drops of the prescription drug, Pontacaine, into the patient’s extremely irritated peepers, to treat the nitric acid burns. Which, the fireman had been informed, appeared to be only minor and should not produce any permanent corneal scarring.
A half dozen vials of blood had been drawn and rushed down to the lab.
Gage had been forced to endure another shower—this time, a slightly warmer one.
The fireman’s sinuses had been flushed out, and gargling and an anaesthetic spray had done wonders for his ridiculously sore throat.
Chest x-rays had been ordered and taken, and several back-to-back breathing treatments had been administered.
Still, one specialist after another continued to pay the ‘poison gas victim’ visits.
Following the hematologist, pulmonologist, cardiologist, urologist and opthamologist, Kel Brackett, summoned one last ‘ologist’ in, for a consult.
Dr. James Hendelson joined the steady stream of people entering and exiting Exam Three. He stepped up beside his concerned colleague and accepted the metal clipboard that was extended toward him.
John Gage, who’d been just lying there, stoically enduring one treatment after another, and wordlessly watching the treatment room’s traffic come and go, caught sight of the toxicologist and turned in his best friend’s direction. “Somethin’ tells me…” he managed to get out—between coughs, “you ain’t gonna be able ta ‘talk’ me outta here…this time.”
His silent partner didn’t reply. DeSoto just sat there on his stool, in his hospital robe and surgical scrubs.
But John could tell, by the look of deep concern on his buddy’s face, that he and Roy shared the same exact feeling. The fireman’s head slowly swung back in the young physician’s direction. “Don’t take this personally, Doc. But I was sort a’ hopin’ I’d never see you again.”
Hendelson was forced to smile. “Don’t take this personally, John, but I was sort a’ hopin’ the same thing.”
He’s studied the results of John’s lab tests. Blood analysis indicated the poison was present in moderate levels. "No indication of any methemoglobinema…yet. I’d start him on steroids, and IV antibiotics. I would use dialysis to filter the toxin from his bloodstream, and I would also continue to flush his sinuses out, and use breathing treatments to purge as much of the inhaled poison from his lungs, as possible."
Brackett took his clipboard back and promptly turned his consultant’s treatment suggestions into medical orders.
Two orderlies came into the exam room, towing a gurney.
“Looks like your ride is finally here,” Kel realized. “We’ll see you upstairs.”
Gage gave Brackett a glum nod. “I See You?”
Kel turned to his consultant.
The longhaired young medicine man gave John Gage a reluctant nod. “For the next 24 to 48 hours, anyway…depending on what your next lab panels reveal. Thanks to the prompt care you received, a lot of the poison was neutralized. I anticipate a complete recovery.” Seeing that the patient’s mood remained dark, the young doctor decided a little ‘reminder’ might be in order. “Once again, you seem to have defied the odds. I understand that you, and Roy, and Chet are the only ones, out of the 25 people who were exposed to the leak, to survive.”
Both firefighters’ faces filled with shock…closely followed by looks of profound sadness.
Roy watched wordlessly, as Johnny was whisked away. It would take awhile for the nurses to get his poisoned partner settled into his room up in ICU. So he heaved a heavy sigh and then headed for the doctor’s lounge…to wait.
When he reached the lounge, Roy was pleasantly surprised to find the rest of Station 51’s crew assembled there.
Stanley questioned his senior paramedic about his partner’s condition.
Stoker then grilled Gage’s closest friend for a detailed description of the missing pen.
Roy stared at the inquisitive engineer in disbelief. “It was green…it had a broken clip…and it was out of ink.”
“Were there any other distinguishable features?” Marco wondered.
Roy gave both of his interrogators strange stares. “Exactly how many old dried up, beat up green pens are you guys expecting to come across?” He glanced down at the table and spotted the pad of paper and the scribbling. “You guys aren’t buying into this ‘lucky’ pen business?” he hopefully inquired.
“It doesn’t matter what we think,” Hank solemnly determined. “It’s what he believes that counts.”
Roy thought his Captain’s comment over for a few seconds. “It also had teeth marks on it.”
Stoker’s eyebrows arched upwards. “Teeth marks?”
DeSoto nodded. “Remember that MVA over on Melbourne…about six months back? I was on my way to Rampart, with the first victim, and you guys were still working on getting the second victim ou—”
“—Oh, yeah!” Kelly quickly cut in. “And that light pole toppled over and pinned Gage to the sidewalk.”
“Right,” Roy acknowledged. “Well, I guess his legs were really killing him. Dwyer said Johnny was certain that they’d both been broken. Before you guys lifted the light pole off of him, Johnny wanted to know if somebody would give him something for the pain, first. Just for a joke, Dwyer told me he stuck his pen between Johnny’s teeth…yah know, for him to bite down on.”
The guys all grinned at the amusing memory.
“As you well know, you got the light pole off of him and it turned out, his legs were just badly bruised, and not busted. In the course of the next couple of shifts, Johnny had several more ‘close brushes’ with injuries that could have required lengthy stays in hospital beds. Since his ‘change of luck’ seemed to coincide with the sudden appearance of Dwyer’s pen…”
His shiftmates’ faces suddenly filled with looks of dawning understanding.
“Gentlemen,” Dixie McCall exclaimed, as came she strolling into the room, “I have some good news…and some not so good news.” She beamed a broad grin in Stanley and Stoker and Lopez’s direction. “You three have been cleared for duty.”
The three firemen were relieved, but not all that surprised, by the news.
The nurse turned to the two remaining members of Captain Stanley’s A-Shift crew, and her smile did a disappearing act. “I’m afraid the two of you will be spending the night. Kel wants to continue to monitor the toxin’s levels in your blood, purely as a precaution. We have a room ready—and waiting—for you, up on the second floor.”
“Would it be okay, if we all went up and said goodnight to Gage before we go?” Hank Stanley suddenly inquired.
Dixie’s grin returned and was beamed at all five of Johnny’s ‘big brothers’. “I don’t see why not. I’ll call and let them know you’re coming.” With that, and a final warm smile, the woman left the lounge.
“Finally!” Marco Lopez declared, as the pen in his cramped right hand quit scribbling.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to say, for quite some time now,” their Captain confessed. He pulled the pen from Lopez’s palm and passed it on to Kelly. “Chet?”
“Yeah, Cap?”
“Just bite!”
Kelly reluctantly clamped his jaws down on the pen. It took him several tries, before he finally clamped down hard enough to leave bite marks. After wiping the spit from it, Chet turned the teeth-marked utensil over to his still chuckling chums.
Mike broke the pen’s pocket clip off and passed it to Marco.
Marco scraped the utensil against the corner of the table, inflicting several nice gouges in its green plastic case.
Roy took the pen that was handed to him, dropped it onto the floor and rolled it beneath his hospital slippered right foot a few times. He retrieved the grungy green item and gave it a careful scrutinization. It was close.
But, would it be close enough?
Hank snatched the pen from DeSoto’s outstretched hand. “C’mon, guys. Let’s go see if we can cheer up a sick friend…”
Six floors up…in Rampart General’s ICU ward…
Gage gazed glumly around at his gloomy hospital setting. “I suppose this is where you try to convince me…of just how lucky I am to be here…” he half-joked, over the constant ‘whirring’ and ‘clicking’ of his recently-connected dialysis machine.
Upon his patient’s prompting, Kel Brackett proceeded to remind his forlorn young friend of just how truly fortunate he had been—even in the absence of his ‘lucky’ pen.
But Johnny remained dubious. “Doc’, it’s not lucky to have your regulator quit on you—at any time. But especially not when you’re stuck up on the second-floor of a burning apartment building.”
“If your regulator hadn’t malfunctioned at that last fire, Roy claims you would have probably been killed when that room flashed, because you would have been standing directly in front of the door when it blew open.”
“Yeah. Well, there’s nothin’ lucky about getting a bad case a’ smoke inhalation.”
“If you hadn’t gotten smoke inhalation, you wouldn’t have been so congested. And, if you hadn’t had so much mucous in your airways, that nitric acid would’ve burnt the linings in your nasal passages and lungs, for sure!”
Gage had to agree that those were all valid points.
Still, Kel could see that his patient remained deeply skeptical.
Right about then, is when the rest of Station 51’s A-Shift walked in.
Gage saw his fellow firefighters saunter in, and couldn’t help but grin. “What are you guys doin’ up here?”
Hank flashed his youngest crewmember a reassuring smile. “Roy and Chet are about to check into a room, four floors below. The rest of us are awaiting transportation back to the Station.”
Mike’s smile matched his Captain’s. “We just came up to tuck you in.”
“Yeah. And to give you something…” Marco added, nudging Chet to the forefront.
Kelly stepped up and presented their hospitalized buddy with his ‘lucky’ pen—er, with his ‘new’ lucky pen.
Johnny was beside himself with joy. Even though—through blurred vision—he could tell that the green pen he’d just been handed wasn’t the ‘real deal’. Yes, he knew. But he didn’t let on that he knew. “Where was it?”
“Uhhh…” Kelly managed to stammer, as his mind came up blank.
“It was in the Squad,” Lopez replied—er, lied.
“It must a’ fell between the seats,” Stoker quickly contributed.
The paramedic proceeded to thank his shiftmates—profusely—for returning his pen to him.
Grins, handshakes and ‘goodnights’ were exchanged, and Johnny’s visitors reluctantly filed back out of the room.
Roy remained behind. The paramedic stood there, silently observing his partner.
Johnny was just lying there in his hospital bed, gazing blurrily down at the object in his hands.
“You know that’s not your ‘real’ lucky pen…don’t you.”
A broad grin was still plastered to Gage’s face. He aimed it in DeSoto’s direction. “This one’s even luckier.” Johnny caught his partner’s puzzled look and continued. “You guys spent a lot a’ time…and went through a whole lot a’ trouble…just ta make this thing for me. Ma-an! I’ve got five of the finest friends imaginable watchin’ out for me. I mean, a guy can’t get any luckier than that! Now, can he.”
DeSoto returned his really lucky friend’s grin. “No. No-o. I guess not. Goodnight, Johnny.”
“Goodnight, Roy. Oh…by the way, whose teeth marks are these?”
“Chet’s!” his departing partner called back over his shoulder.
Roy was halfway down the hospital corridor, and he could still hear the sound of his friend’s hearty laughter.
Dr. Hendelson was right.
Johnny was gonna be okay.
Author’s notes:
“Love Is Like Oxygen” is off the 1978 album, “Level Headed”, and it is sung by the British rock band, Sweet. Yes. It’s a real Sweet song. ;)
“I Can See Clearly Now” is a Johnny Nash single from 1972.
Tripping Johnny’s last song is “With A Little Help From My Friends”, from The Beatles 1967 album ‘Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’.
Info on nitric oxide was gleaned from the Internet and then ‘slightly’ tweaked. ;)
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