Chapter Two
Gage glanced down at the little slip of paper in his hands. He’d been too busy talking to the Captain, to take note of the call address. “Uhhh…Take a right two blocks up. We can follow Levine all the way over to Alameda.”
DeSoto nodded and immediately signaled a lane change. “Back there…in Michigan,” he tentatively began, speaking loud enough to be heard over their rescue squad’s wailing siren, “if you hadn’t received certification in time…” he shot his partner an anxious glance, “what would you have done?”
“Watch out for that green car on your left,” his navigator warned, as they approached the next intersection. “I don’t think they see us.”
Roy dodged the green car as easily as his buddy had dodged his question, and turned right, onto Levine. “What would you have done?” he tenaciously re-inquired
John contemplated his partner’s repeated question over for a few blocks. “I would have…done exactly what you would have done,” he finally ‘fessed up’ and flashed his inquisitive friend a sly, slightly askew smile.
DeSoto considered the dire implications of his pal’s evasive answer over for a few moments. Damn! Just as he’d suspected. He’d nearly lost his paramedic partner. “Remind me to send Dr. Hunter and Mr. Jandron some thank you notes,” he lightly requested and gave his fellow firefighter—and best friend—an appreciative glance.
The two men locked gazes for an instant.
Gage looked equally grateful to find himself still seated beside his best buddy, and his sly smile slowly graduated into a wry grin.
It took five more minutes for the pair to arrive at 411 South Alameda Drive.
DeSoto pulled up to the palm-tree-lined street’s curb, threw their truck’s tranny into PARK and then killed both its engine and its siren. He was just about to open his door, when an extremely distraught young woman came barreling around the Squad’s front bumper.
“Please…hurry!” she frantically requested, but then stood there, effectively blocking the fireman’s exit. “It’s…my son! He’s…too afraid…to come down!”
Gage reached the hyperventilating lady’s side in seconds and ushered her away from the door, so his partner could climb out. “All right, mam. Now, why don’t you just take some nice, deep breaths,” he calmly advised, “and tell us where your son is.”
The boy’s mother was still breathing too hard to speak, so she simply pointed to one of the street’s tall, stately palm trees.
John took the woman in tow and the three of them headed over to the tree in question.
The two firemen stood at the base of the tall tree’s trunk and gazed up into the spoke-like branches of its lush green canopy.
A rather brisk breeze was causing the tree to sway. Suddenly, from over 45 feet in the air, a petrified child’s cherubic face appeared amidst the palm’s fluttering fronds.
DeSoto whistled softly. “How did he ever get up there?”
Gage had an even better question. “Why did he ever go up there?”
“It’s all…your fault!” the child’s panting parent exclaimed, and aimed an accusingly glare at each of them.
The boy’s rescuers exchanged looks of confusion and incredulity. But ‘satisfying their curiosity’ was not their number one priority at the moment. The two men turned and started trotting toward their truck.
“I’ll grab the gear,” Roy volunteered.
“Right!” John acknowledged. “And I’ll grab a barf bag.”
The rescuers carried two sets of climbing spurs on their truck. One set had inch-long spikes, for scaling bark-less utility poles, and the other had two-inch steel spurs—or ‘gaffs’—for climbing trees. Roy pulled the longer spikes, a climbing harness and a child’s life-belt from one of their equipment compartments and went trotting back over to the tree.
His partner pulled an ‘urp’ sack from another open compartment and then headed back, as well, in the direction of the little boy’s hyperventilating mother.
“Ma-am, I want you to breathe into this bag for me, okay?” the dark-haired paramedic requested.
The young lady looked indignant. “I…will…not!”
“You’re hyperventilating. Your respiration rate is through the roof. We need to get your breathing slowed down, before you pass out on us.”
The woman reluctantly latched onto the proffered paper sack and, even more begrudgingly, began breathing into it.
“That’s it,” Gage calmly encouraged. “Nice…deep…slow breaths.”
DeSoto finished donning his climbing harness. The rescuer then dropped to one knee and began attaching one of the two gaff stirrups to the heel of his left boot. He got that climbing spur securely fastened and then quickly shifted to his other knee. In no time, the matching spike had been buckled to the inside of his right ankle. Roy stepped up to the stately palm, and secured his slide rope to its trunk. “I’m all set,” he determined. “What’s your son’s name?”
“Jamie. Jameson Alexander Tyson III,” the boy’s mommy replied, and was relieved to find that her breathing had already returned nearer to normal.
Roy exchanged a thoughtful glance with his partner. “Jamie,” he further determined and began his climb.
As he ascended, the blond-haired paramedic cautiously maintained at least three points of contact with the tree’s trunk at all times: a hand, his slide rope, and a spike. The rescuer was particularly careful to twist his heels inward before ramming his climbing spurs against the side of the tree. By keeping his heels turned inward, the curved spikes could get a much better bite in the bark of the palm as he stepped up.
“They were playing firemen,” Mrs. Tyson annoyedly announced. “They said they needed someone to rescue. So my son volunteered to be their ‘victim’.”
Her son’s three young playmates were huddled just a few yards away, gazing guiltily down at the sidewalk.
The irate woman paused to give them a highly perturbed glare. “They neglected to tell him that they had no intentions of really rescuing him!”
John saw the forlorn looks on the faces of Jamie’s young friends. “Hey…Don’t worry. We’ll get your ‘victim’ down for you.”
“Don’t you dare encourage them!” their victim’s mommy warned. “Ever since they saw a couple of paramedics rescue someone at the shopping center last week, they’ve had firemen on the their brains! That’s all they talk about!” She gave the paramedic another accusing glare and then pointed up into the air. “Just look at what you’ve gotten my son into!”
The dark-haired fireman heaved a heavy sigh. “Yeah. Well…if we got him up there, I’m sure we can get him back down. So take it easy, and just keep breathing into the bag for me, okay?”
The blond-haired fireman finally reached the little boy’s level. “Hi there, Jamie. My name’s Roy. I want you to hold very still for me, so I can slip this belt around you, okay? Think you can do that for me?”
Jamie was waaaaay too terrified to speak. So the boy blinked his wide eyes and simply nodded—once.
Roy secured the life-belt to the child’s waist and then clipped it back on to his climbing harness. “All right, Jamie, you can let go of the tree now…and then, I want you to wrap your arms around my neck.”
The petrified kid failed to comply.
So the paramedic pried the child’s white-knuckled appendages from the palm’s swaying branches and placed them around his neck. “Okay, Jamie…I’m gonna take you down now…nice…and slow.”
As promised, their descent from the towering palm tree was both nice…and slow.
As soon as the pair came within arms’ reach, John latched onto Jamie and unclipped the kid’s life-belt from his partner’s climbing harness. He placed their young victim’s posterior down on the grass at the base of the palm’s trunk and began his IPS.
Jamie’s still-distraught mommy attempted to comfort her still-scared-to-death son.
Roy felt his feet finally hit the ground and exhaled an audible sigh of relief. The fireman unfastened his slide rope from the tree and began removing his climbing gear.
His partner proceeded to perform a quick, but thorough, assessment of their now whimpering patient’s physical condition.
The little boy’s bare forearms bore some minor abrasions from coming into contact with the tree’s rough bark. But, other than that, the child checked out just fine!
Gage gave the boy, and his mommy, a reassuring grin and then shifted his attention to Jamie’s playmates.
The children were still standing there on the sidewalk, staring up at their role models—in awe.
Mrs. Tyson didn’t want him to encourage them.
But John didn’t want to discourage them, either. “Your friend is going to be just fine,” he assured the wanna-be rescuers. “But you kids have got to be more careful. Being a fireman is a very dangerous job. It is most definitely not a game. Jamie could have been killed, or seriously injured. If you really wanna do the work that we do, you need to study hard, get good grades and graduate from high school. And then, if you decide you still want to rescue people and save lives and property, you can apply to the Fire Academy. Okay?”
All four of the children’s heads bobbed up and down. Heck, the fireman’s audience was so enamored with him, he could have told them they had to eat nothing but broccoli and spinach for an entire month and they, undoubtedly, would have nodded their compliance.
Gage glanced up, to see if partner had anything he wanted to add.
Roy flashed his lecturing friend a slight smile and remained silent.
The Big Kid would make a fine father…someday.
Jamie’s mommy pulled her somewhat recovered son to his feet. “Jameson Alexander Tyson III, you march into that house right now and go straight to your room!”
The boy did an about face and obediently began marching off.
Mrs. Tyson gave the two rescue guys a grateful grin. “Thank you, gentlemen!”
The firemen flashed the woman back some ‘you’re welcome’ smiles, and began carting their equipment back over to their truck.
The rescue guys got their gear stowed away and then climbed back into their squad.
Gage reached for the rescue truck’s dash-mounted radio’s mic’. “L.A., Squad 51. We’re clear at the scene and returning to quarters. You can cancel the ambulance.”
“10-4, Squad 51…” the dispatcher promptly came back.
John replaced the mic’ and the two men just sat there for awhile, in thoughtful silence.
“When I was a kid,” Gage finally spoke up, “we used to play ‘Indians and Cowboys’. I mean, that was the thing. And now, kids are playing paramedics.” He turned his amazed gaze toward his partner. “Roy, we have arrived.”
“When I was a kid, we used to play ‘Cowboys and Indians’, too,” DeSoto quietly confessed. “But we didn’t use real bullets and arrows. We used to ‘pretend’ a lot. We used to use our ‘imaginations’. If you ask me, kids these days ‘play’ a little too realistically. And, if they’re going to be that realistic, I’d just as soon they played something else.” He suddenly envisioned them being called upon to treat a ‘scalping’ victim—and shuddered.
“When you put it that way, I guess we should be glad they weren’t realistically playing just firemen. They prob’ly would a’ set half the block on fire.”
The firemen swapped a pair of highly relieved glances.
DeSoto finally flicked their truck’s flashing overheads off. The driver then ignited its engine and eased it away from the curb. Something else suddenly occurred to him. “What does Stacey think of your mustache?”
“She hasn’t seen it…yet.”
“Wasn’t she supposed to pick you guys up at the airport?”
“She was sick yesterday and couldn’t make it. So she had her roommate drive us home. I tried to see her last night. But she made me stay away. Said she was afraid I might catch some of her germs. I called—first thing this morning. No one answered. She must be feeling better, if she went in to work. Right?”
DeSoto flashed his apprehensive associate a sympathetic smile. “When we get back to the Station, you could prob’ly call Headquarters and find out—for sure. She must be there, by now.”
Gage gave his helpful friend a grateful grin. “Ri-ight!”
The paramedics returned to their quarters.
John stepped out into the garage and started heading for the pay phone in the corner of the fire station’s rec’ room.
The paramedic pulled a coin from his pants pocket and snatched up the phone’s receiver. He deposited his dime in the slot and then dialed a number from memory. "Yes. Personnel Department, please. Extension two-two-six.”
The connection had no sooner been made, when the claxons sounded.
Hank Stanley reached the call station just as John was re-entering the garage. “Nix the pushups, Gage!”
“Right, Cap!” the paramedic glumly agreed, as he went trotting around the rear of their rescue truck.”
“…woman stuck to a fence,” the dispatcher proceeded to announce, “at the Community Park…1248 South Hollander Road…Cross-street: Silverton…the Community Park…One-two-four-eight South Hollander…ambulance is responding…Time out: 09:49.”
The two rescuers slid into their seats and then glanced at one another. Child stuck in a palm tree…woman stuck to a park fence. The pair could sort a’ see a ‘pattern’ developing for their current tour of duty.
“Station 51. KMG—365,” the Captain calmly acknowledged and passed them their copy of the call slip.
“Hang a right,” Gage advised.
DeSoto gave his navigator an appreciative nod and pulled ahead.
Both emergency vehicles exited the fire station, turned to the right and then went racing off down the street, with their warning lights flashing and their sirens wailing.
