Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Emergency!. It all belongs to Universal and Mark IV. Any characters other than the ones in the show are my own creation.

AN: Sentences in italics are the thoughts of the characters.

Chapter 2: Injuries and Frustration

One minute after the alarm had rung, Captain Jones came trotting out of his office, yelling instructions.

"Come on everyone, let's go. There's a fire at the old Bowman place down on Highway 18. Let's get on it!"

Nita's eyes lit up with excitement as she donned her turnout coat and plopped her helmet on her head, making sure to tuck her long rope of braided hair underneath it.

She called out to her new friends, "Come on you guys! Let's go!" She jumped into the driver's seat of her truck.

"All right!" Johnny yelled, with excitement shining in his eyes. "Now we can see what kind of action this place has."

Johnny jumped into the truck next to Nita and Roy hopped in last. She turned on the siren and lights and smiled. "Hang on fellows, it's gonna be a bumpy trip!"

After a fifteen minute drive down a very rough, dirt road, Nita could make out the distinct header of black smoke boiling up over the trees. She glanced over at her passengers, who were hanging on for dear life as they bounced over the ruts and potholes on the dirt road.

"Man," Johnny shouted over the blaring siren, "I thought LA had some rough roads."

Nita laughed and replied, "You ain't seen the worst of it yet...Ok, we're here. Looks like we beat the engine, as usual. Let's look around and see if anyone is hurt."

A few seconds later, Harry Bowman came running out of his three story house. He was coughing and his face was covered in streaks of soot.

"My wife, she's upstairs!" The man started coughing violently once again. He finally looked up at the two men and then noticed their shorter companion.

"Oh Nita, it's you. Thank God!" Harry fell to his knees as he continued coughing.

"Please Nita, you gotta go up and get her. Please don't let her burn up in there," the distraught man cried.

"Ok Harry. What room is she in?" Nita asked, while unlocking the panels on the truck. She dragged out the oxygen canister and smiled as Roy took it and affixed the mask over the man's face.

Harry coughed again, and raspily responded, "She's in the sewing room on the third floor, the last door on the right. Please hurry, Nita. The smoke...it was so hot...I just couldn't get up there..." Harry began to wheeze between coughs, so Roy increased the flow of the oxygen.

Nita quickly finished donning her bunker pants, buttoned up her turnout coat, and turned around to grab her air tank. She was greeted by a worried Johnny.

"Here, let's hook you up. Please be careful in there," he whispered, while helping her cinch up the straps on the tank.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. And...thanks," she said as she took off to enter the burning house. She reached the door, gave the two paramedics a wave and a thumbs up, and darted into the house.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Nita had to work her way into the house a lot slower than she would have liked. There was a lot of old antique furniture that had caught fire already, and the smoke was thick, even though it was downstairs. She was afraid that when she did get up the stairs and finally found Greta, it would be too late. But she still kept on, dodging falling bits of flaming debris, and then she found the staircase, already burning.

She slowly inched her way forward up the stairs to the third floor. The smoke was very thick up there, and it was hot, really hot! She finally found the door she was looking for, and pushed it open slowly. She found Greta Bowman lying on the floor, apparently overcome by the heavy smoke and intense heat. She checked for a pulse, and found that the older woman had a weak and rapid beat.

Nita started to throw Greta over her shoulder, when she felt a rush of intense heat hit her back. She turned around to see the hallway engulfed in a swirl of angry flames.

"Oh man," she groaned as she searched for a way out of the room. There was none. She then ran over and shut the door to the sewing room, praying it would buy her the few precious minutes she would need. Nita then ran to the window and attempted to raise it, but it refused to budge. Years of paint had sealed it shut.

"Damn!" her mind screamed out. She grabbed the nearest chair and used it to break out the window. She could feel the heat intensifying behind her. She knew she didn't have much time before the room flashed.

Suddenly, a ladder appeared in the open window. Nita knew that her crew mates had arrived to help. She positioned Greta's body so that Jim Greene, who had climbed the ladder and was waiting in the window, could take the woman to safety.

Nita screamed out, "Here! Take Mrs. Bowman. Get her out of here. The room is going to flash any second!"

By now, she was gasping for air herself. The smoke was very thick now, and the alarm on her air tank had sounded a few minutes ago. She knew she was out of air, so she pulled her air mask off and leaned out of the window, hoping to breathe in some fresh air to clear her head. She heard Johnny and Roy yelling at her to climb down the ladder, but for some reason, she felt tired and lethargic.

"Must have got up too early," she thought, as a debilitating wave of dizziness washed over her. It was by the grace of God that she had the presence of mind to leap out of the window a split second before the whole upper part of the house blew straight up into the air! The last thing Nita saw was boards and two by fours raining down on her. As one jagged board crashed into her head, her last thought was, "Man, Cap's gonna kill me for this..." She never heard her face mask crack, or even felt the debris that literally buried her on the roof ledge.

The crew screamed in terror when they realized that their friend wasn't on the ladder or safely on the ground. Roy looked up and saw Nita's air tank under a pile of debris. She was still on the roof ledge but now she was buried under the rubble from the explosion.

"Johnny," he yelled, "there she is, under that section of the wall!"

"I see her, Roy, already on my way!" Johnny had already flown up that ladder before Cap could turn and give an order to his crew.

"Wow!" he thought, "these two work so well together. Damn, I sure hope Nita's alright." Cap continued to watch as the crew finished putting out the last of the flames and began clean up procedures.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Johnny hurriedly threw the boards off of Nita's body, desperate to make sure that she was still alive. As he uncovered her face, he saw how a broken two by four had crashed end first, right into her face mask, causing it to shatter. Remarkably, she was not bleeding, but he knew she was going to have a bad bruise.

Finally, Johnny was able to get his fingers on her neck and let the breath out he didn't know he was holding. He started shouting down to his partner, "She's got a pulse, Roy! She's unconscious, no external cuts, but she's having a little trouble breathing. Her face mask is shattered, and her air hose is ripped. Looks like she's been breathing smoke for the last few minutes."

Roy quickly jotted down the information as quickly as his partner had called them out. It was lucky that the woman was even alive, after having jumped out that window, and the upstairs blowing up on her heels.

Johnny yelled to his best friend that he was ready to bring Nita down from the roof. He had finally cleared all the debris off of her body. Once he had determined that she had no broken bones, he picked her up in the traditional fireman's carry, and climbed down the ladder as quickly as he could. He could see Captain Jones and the rest of the crew waiting anxiously for some word about their comrade and friend. Roy walked to his partner and helped him lay Nita's battered body along side Greta Bowman, the victim she had rescued earlier.

Just then, Greta stirred and opened her eyes.

"Harry, cough cough, Harry? Where are you?"

Her husband was by her side in an instant. "I'm right here, honey. You're ok now. Nita got here in time to get you out. She saved your life," he paused to kiss his wife of 35 years, and wipe away her tears. "I just hope she's going to be ok."

Greta glanced over to see the unconscious form of her rescuer lying next to her. She and her husband said a prayer for Nita's quick recovery.

One of the first things that Roy and Johnny noticed when they first saw Nita in action was her rapport with the victims. She seemed to know almost everyone, and they knew her. This explained why Greta and Harry were so shaken up because of Nita's injury. They watched along with the others from the station with bated breath, while the two paramedics administered first aid to their fallen comrade.

Roy frowned as he took her BP. "Too low," he muttered to himself, while an anxious Johnny took her pulse. "Too fast and weak," he muttered as he and Roy looked up at each other, reading each others expressions. It was Johnny who broke the silence.

"Where's that ambulance? We can't treat her here! Her BP is too low! She could have a head injury or internal bleeding!" Roy laid a hand on his partner's shoulder, offering him his support and a tiny measure of calm.

Captain Jones replied, "Guys, ambulance just got dispatched. It'll be 45 minutes until it gets here." The man could see the anger radiating off of the dark haired man, his hands still holding Nita's head steady.

Johnny looked up angrily, frustration furrowed deep in his face and eyes. "Nita doesn't have 45 minutes!" He looked around wildly, when his eyes came to rest on the woman's squad.

"Hey Roy?" He called to his partner. "Why don't we transport her on her truck? Here's a back board, and a stokes. We can package her up and you can drive us to the hospital."

He looked at his partner, pleading with his eyes, and they both glanced over at the captain. Captain Jones looked down at Nita's still form lying on the ground, and then looked back at the two para what it's. He made his decision.

"Ok, do it guys, and please take care of her. She's all we got. She's real special..." Cap choked out something else that Roy couldn't quite make out, but then realized that the man was just as upset as they were. Here they were, again, with all that great knowledge to help save lives, and this time, they even had the equipment to use right in front of them, but no license to use it. Roy shook his head in frustration. There had to be a way to allow paramedics to use the equipment of other paramedics, especially in an emergency, whether they were in their own jurisdiction or not. He personally vowed to find a way to make that happen, some day!

The guys settled into paramedic mode and began to prepare Nita to be transported. Johnny grabbed the back board off the truck and laid it down beside themselves. He also grabbed the stokes, so that they could put Nita, who would be laying on the back board, inside of it, and then they would tie it to the top of the pick up.

They rolled her body gently, and took off her turnout coat, bunker pants. Her useless face mask and air hose had already been discarded once Nita had been carried down from the roof. Roy glanced at the shattered face mask, with it's barely attached air hose, and wondered how on earth she didn't have any cuts on her face,

He looked back over at his partner. Johnny was gently checking every inch of Nita's arms, legs, head, neck, and torso, searching for the tell-tale signs of broken bones and internal bleeding. He smiled slightly once he was finished, and informed his partner that he didn't find any broken bones or any signs of internal bleeding. Both paramedics surmised that her life had been spared because she leapt out of that window at the last second. The only injuries that Johnny could find were from the impact from that upended two by four that cracked her mask.

Everyone could see the bruises starting to form on her left arm and the left side of her face. However, she was still having a bit of trouble breathing, and was still on oxygen. Roy had attached an oxygen mask on Nita's face the moment Johnny had laid her down, but for some unknown reason, she was still unconscious, which had the two paramedics worried. Nita had taken some knocks on this job, but until now, she had always gotten up and walked away from it. To see her lying on the ground so still had her Captain and crew mates pretty worried.

Johnny and Roy gently rolled Nita's body over and placed her on a back board. Johnny tenderly strapped on a C-collar and assisted his partner in placing the back board into the stokes. After securing the board inside the stokes, they lifted her up and onto the back of the truck, and secured the stokes with the strapping they had found in one of the compartments. Roy hopped into the cab and cranked up Nita's truck. Johnny yelled out, "Ok Roy, hurry!"

Captain Jones explained how to get to Cleveland Memorial from where they were, and then they took off. Cap looked on at the quickly vanishing truck and shook his head. He hated seeing his crew getting hurt, especially Nita. She was such an asset to the fire department, and even more important, she was a good friend. He silently prayed while he and the rest of the crew finished the clean up at the scene. Once that was completed, and the ambulance had picked up the Bowmans, they would take the engine and go straight to the emergency room to check on their fallen comrade.

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Hello everyone! I hope you have enjoyed reading this chapter of the story. I wanted to thank everyone who has read the story, and a very special thanks goes out to those of you who have taken the time to leave a review. I really do appreciate the reviews!!

Now that you've read this chapter, please take a few seconds and review it for me! It won't take but a few seconds out of your day, and I will really be grateful for your input!!

Take care everyone...see ya next Monday. KMG-365 Nita