INJURIES IN THE NIGHT

by ardavenport

- - - Fire.

- - - Blazing high into the intensely black sky above. Everything else seemed darkened around the yellow flames erupting from the roof of the huge warehouse building. Men shouted, ran. Firelight glinted on the dark pools of water on the cement pavement. Some headquarters men had said something about arson, but that investigation was way over Johnny Gage's pay grade.

- - - He and his partner manned a hose from Engine Fifty-One. Other than a night watchman with a scraped knee and a sprained wrist, there were no victims for the two paramedics to treat. Tonight they were firemen, attacking the flames coming from a side door and window. The night watchman's old office, charred and now drenched inside. Roy DeSoto aimed the powerful water stream at the persistent flames. Johnny minded the hose behind him.

- - - Crash. Fire-consumed wood and weakened metal gave way. At least part of the roof had given way. That part of the battle was lost. It had looked bad when Station Fifty-One rolled in on the second alarm. Men's voices called out. Overhead, the ladder truck slowly swung around, the bright stream of water from it redeploying to a now more critical danger area.

- - - "Gage! DeSoto!"

- - - Standing outside a large garage door opening, Captain Stanley waved at them. Behind him firefighters in masks and air tanks emerged from the smoke, arms over the shoulders of their comrades.

- - - Men ran toward them and took the hose that they left behind. They ran toward the rescuers and the wounded who limped and stumbled over the fat hose lines cris-crossing the wet pavement. They met on a patch of bare ground near where the squad was parked. Time to be paramedics now.

"Your first actions are to quickly assess the victim's condition. Injuries, skin color. Is the victim even breathing. If you have multiple victims you might have to make life-and-death decisions on who gets treated first based just on that first look." Doctor Brackett's training lecture told them what to do.

- - - Johnny took off the helmets, air tanks and turnout coats of the two coughing men while Roy got out the trauma box, emergency blankets, oxygen from the squad compartments. Their faces blotchy with soot, both men shook their heads when he asked if they were burned. Their helmets, coats and air tanks had taken most of the impact of a falling, flaming beam. But one of them had trouble getting his shoulder out of his coat. The other had a bloody nose under the soot.

"After visual inspection, the vital signs are your next indicators, respiration, pulse, blood pressure, eye responses. A reading of the vital signs - correctly done - will tell you when something is wrong, even when the victim doesn't know himself."

- - - The shoulder was dislocated, which surprised the man - Robles from Station Forty-Five - but Roy didn't find anything worse with the other man - Bolinsky, also from Forty-Five - than the bloody nose, a loose tooth and smoke inhalation. They had oxygen on both of them. Roy talked to Rampart on the biophone and helped immobilize the shoulder.

- - - A siren; the ambulance arrived, coming right up to where the squad was parked, next to their large yellow square laid out on the wet pavement. The fire no longer crested the roof of the warehouse. It was now confined to smoldering piles inside the wrecked building, teams of firefighters vigorously still attacking it. Everyone was tired, but they would not quit until the fire was thoroughly dead. A fresh breeze blew away some of the smoke.

- - - The Captain from Station Forty-Five - Grahm - came by to check on his men and exchange a few light words that confirmed that they were really okay. They would both go to the hospital, Robles for his shoulder and Bolinsky for his tooth.

- - - As he helped load the men into the ambulance, John Gage could just make out the black outline of the warehouse on a less black sky. It was almost morning, the air cool and invigorating on his face, but he was comfortably warm under his turnout coat.

- - - They had been up most of the night. Before this run, with barely a couple of hours sleep at the station, Squad Fifty-One had been called to a late night, beer-soaked bar fight between drunks who talked loud but quivered with fear at the first sight of real, red blood.

- - - Roy passed him the drug box and biophone and then closed the ambulance doors. Johnny yawned into his arm. They had been up most of the night. Their shift would be over in a few hours. That was the time to be extra careful, when carelessness, accidents and injuries happened. He checked the IV on Robles and the oxygen masks on both men.

- - - The air was fresh - - -

Something poked Johnny hard in the ribs. He started. And squinted up at the bright lights over the examination table under him.

"Aaaah!"

The oxygen mask muffled his surprise, but the sound was still loud enough. He lifted his head.

The group of a dozen paramedic trainees, standing in a semi-circle at the foot of the examination table, laughed. Even Doctor Brackett, a notoriously humorless man, smirked. Johnny hastily pulled the oxygen mask off his face and sat up.

"Well," Brackett moved away from the head of the table, the smile leaving his face, "now that you've had your fun, let's just see how much all you hose jockeys remember. Pair up." The class respectfully backed up to the tables where the manuals, penlights, pens and pads, and blood pressure cuffs were laid out.

Johnny swung his legs off the table. Roy took the oxygen mask from him and hung it back next to the tank.

"Roy, you could have nudged me or something!" Johnny leaned forward with an aggravated loud whisper. He could understand Brackett - who was probably annoyed that one of his assistants had fallen asleep during the lecture - but where was his partner when he needed him?

"What was I supposed to do? Brackett was taking your respiration. He couldn't help noticing."

"Well, what's with the oxygen mask?"

Roy grinned far too broadly for Gage's liking. "It cut down on the snoring. And it could have been worse. One of the guys suggested that Brackett use you to show them how to start an IV."

Johnny sneered and slid off the table. "I do not snore. And you still could have done something."

"Hey, I wasn't the one who was dumb enough to lie down when Brackett asked for volunteers for the demonstration. You could have let one of the trainees do it. By the way, Brackett said that next time he's going to ask for assistants who aren't coming off of an all night shift."

"Gentlemen." Both paramedics turned to see Brackett giving them a blue-eyed glare amidst a dozen paramedic trainees fumbling with blood pressure cuffs and pointing pen lights at each other. "Now that you've had your beauty sleep, feel free to join us any time you're ready."

Johnny raised a hand with a sheepish smile. "Right, Doc."

Roy and Johnny rejoined the group.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Mark VII Productions, Inc., Universal Studios and whoever else owns the 1970's TV show Emergency!; I am just playing in their sandbox.