Thank you so much for your reviews! I promise I will try my darnedest to stay on top of this one. I can't promise it'll be every day, but I will try to be frequent. By the way, I have really no medical knowledge except for what I have gleaned from online medical journals and TV shows. Be gentle if I am making glaring mistakes!
The violent jolt forward smashed Danny into the steering column of the plane, right into his solar plexus and knocked the wind right out of him. For a moment, the small enclosure—which had been encapsulated with the screeching of the wind against the glass and rattling of gear around the truly mortal trio inside—fell into a deathly quiet. Sand had been tossed up in their wake, covering the little Cessna in a pale tan dust. The fine, powdery particles were just settling when Danny could finally heave in a gasping breath, lungs complaining at the abuse of the devices shoved into his ribcage and the quick rush of his desperate intake of air. The skin of his face felt scraped and raw, and something warm and wet trickled down from his scalp, but as soon as he was mobile, he reached a trembling hand toward his partner.
Despite the seatbelt, Steve had also been thrust forward and was sagging limply against his restraints. Crimson blood continued to flow freely through the light blue shirt and down the front of him. Danny touched his uninjured shoulder gently. "Steve," he whispered in a strangled voice. He grimaced at how weak he sounded, and pushed past the feebleness to assess his partner. Steve's skin had a sickly pallor to it; the color in his lips had washed out until the healthy warmth of pink was no longer present.
Danny pushed his pointer and middle fingers into the clammy skin of Steve's neck where he knew the carotid artery was located, and a relieved sob almost escaped his mouth with the discovery of a faint, fluttering pulse. He held his hand still for a bit to make sure it wasn't his own hammering heartbeat, but after a few seconds, he was sure his friend was still alive. Barely hanging on. But alive.
A groan erupted behind him—Dae Won was coming to after, no doubt, being sling-shot around in the backseat like a human ping-pong ball. Danny's concerns were nowhere near him, however, as he craned his neck to view the wounds on Steve's left side, which took the bullet strikes. One of the rounds had hit him in the upper arm, likely an easy fix since the large muscles and bone slowed down or stopped the destructive path of the bullet. The troublesome wound was the gunshot to Steve's left side, as Danny knew, being a first responder for many years and taking many courses about administering rudimentary aid before medics could arrive, that the fear with abdominal injuries was internal bleeding. Danny eased back and glanced down at Steve's right side. No exit wound. That meant it was somewhere in his friend's vital organs.
"Oh, God, Steve," Danny muttered, choking back emotion.
A grim face appeared in the damaged window of the plane and Danny was tremendously relieved at the sight—Grover. An onrush of emergency personnel fell in step close behind. Chin climbed onto the wing of the plane just as Lou yanked off the hatch to gain access to the injured Commander and pitched it away like it was made of tin instead of steel. Danny imagined Lou would have ripped off and tossed aside a boulder if it meant saving someone he cared about.
A new sense of desperation struck Danny when he considered how long the man had spent bleeding out, and how very real the possibility was of his partner dying. "Come on, he's still alive!" Danny barked frantically, just as Chin reached in to grab the limp man underneath the arms. "Come on!" Time was key when rescuing a gunshot victim. They'd need to pack the wounds to at least halt the blood loss, provide oxygen if he was having trouble breathing.
Steve flopped about like a rag doll as Chin hauled him through the opening. "I got you," Chin reassured Steve's unconscious body, probably more for those around him. He shot Danny and Lou a steely, quick look. "Ready?" There was a bit of uncoordinated maneuvering that took place in order to turn the man to make his exit easier, and all Danny could think about was keeping him as still as possible to avoid further tearing of the already injured skin and tissues.
"Grab his legs," Chin instructed Lou, who jumped in to assist as soon as Steve's motionless body was halfway out. Kono's slight form appeared next to her cousin's and she joined the rescue effort as the group hefted the Commander out of the plane.
Lou turned with an intense frown. "EMTs, get over here now!"
Danny crawled out through the same opening just as four medics came scrambling across the beach, backboard and first aid bags in hand. Firefighters had doused the plane with a fire extinguisher prior to his exodus of the death trap loaded with pink drug bundles now littered all over the ground, so Danny took extra precaution when climbing down to avoid possibly slipping in the fresh new coating of sodium bicarbonate.
He hopped gingerly onto the wing of the Cessna and treaded toward the scene which was the stuff of nightmares—his partner, who he could easily say was his closest friend (besides his own children, of course, but that hardly counted, because what adult could honestly talk to his kids about the goings-on of his warped life on this pineapple-infested island?) was surrounded by the Five-0 team and the medics, on Steve like a bunch of vultures on a carcass. Nice analogy, doofus, Danny chided himself. He approached, his eyes catching the image of his partner's boot-clad feet, a rather peculiar clothing choice for the man who spent most of his days in cargo shorts, casual collar shirts (and Danny was sure he'd come to work in a plain white t-shirt if he could), and practical shoes that could easily be kicked off for an impromptu surf or swim in the ocean.
Danny lingered next to Chin and saw that the medics were strapping him to the board, preparing for a quick transport. Scoop and run, Danny thought. He'd heard the phrase many times in Jersey, especially when working the beat. Patrol officers often saw the most gruesome of human misery as first responders—violent gang wars, horrifying car accidents, scores of overdoses—scoop and run meant this guy ain't gonna last long and we better get him on the gurney and treat him on the way. Quick transport did not bode well for Steve. Danny felt a sickness clamp his throat. This is bad.
One of the EMTs held Steve's head as another secured his neck with a cervical collar—an extra precaution. Danny chewed his bottom lip anxiously. He hadn't even thought of a spinal injury. Of course there was the potential for that, the flying metal coffin had taken a nosedive into a giant sandbox. It might as well have been concrete, for Christ's sake.
The oldest of the medics ran trauma shears through the blood-drenched fabric of Steve's blue button-down and white undershirt, quickly turning them into rags, at once exposing the crowd to the hemorrhaging, gaping bullet wound to his side. Danny grimaced and looked away, holding firmly to his throbbing ribcage.
Just as he felt the urge to scream at them to begin packing Steve's guts full of gauze, they pulled out stacks of the pristine mesh material, pressing into the man's upper left flank to stem the flow.
A blood pressure cuff was strapped around Steve's right arm and the medic in charge of this task stoically took the measurement, pressing the bell of the stethoscope into the crook of his elbow, listening with grave intent. "Blood pressure is 85/50," he said after about a half a minute.
"I'll get the IV started," someone shouted, turning away to bark information into his radio.
"Resps?" another asked in a rapid response.
The other moved his stethoscope to Steve's chest, positioning the listening device over multiple locations across the clammy, spattered surface. "Okay bilaterally, but shallow. At about an 11."
"Okay, get me an intubation kit," the oldest medic said, and Danny was sure that even getting a steering wheel jammed into his diaphragm couldn't even take the wind out of him quite like seeing Super SEAL extraordinaire Steve McGarrett with a tube shoved down his throat.
"Oh, no," Danny groaned, bending over and hugging his middle. Someone put a gloved hand on his back and he only realized it was Kono by the smallness and tenderness of her touch. "Oh, my God." The sweep of nausea came back with force as a metal speculum held his partner's colorless lips open enough to feed plastic tubing past his teeth, down his esophagus, and into his weakening lungs.
"I'm in." The medic hooked an ambu bag to the end of the tube protruding from Steve's mouth and immediately began squeezing rhythmically. They listened to his lungs, and then nodded. "Sounds good. Let's get moving."
Danny swallowed heavily to tamp down the desperate sick feeling. "I'm goin' with."
The group gave him a once over and probably figured he was doing them a favor, being that he really needed to be seen as well. "All right. Just make sure to stay out of the way."
"We'll be right behind you, Danny!" Chin called out to the detective, who was already jogging steadily at the same pace as the medics, ignoring the ribs grinding together to keep pace. Danny paused for a moment to gaze out at the rest of the team, standing in a dumbstruck line, staring back. He nodded at his teammates and then the door closed him into the back of the ambulance and the rig pulled away from the scene, sirens blaring.