A/N- Thanks for all the reviews and feedback. Here is the second chapter, if there is too much jargon in it let me know and I can maybe reword or explain things a bit better.
It was six weeks of classroom work for the applicants to reach the required standard to man an ambulance. This time didn't seem to go very quickly, despite Abed declaring a training montage and playing inspirational nineties rock. From the first aid course they had been doing, they progressed onto using tourniquets, recording vital signs, and advanced injury assessment.
Troy and Abed raced each other, pumping up the blood pressure cuffs until the first person's arm turned blue. Jeff took the easy way out and placed the cuff that was attached to the heart monitor around Annie's arm. She scowled at his corner cutting, as he pressed the button labelled NIBP and let the machine do the work for him.
Pierce refused altogether because he insisted he had done hundreds during his time as station Chief.
They learnt to use advanced extrication devices, used for removing patients from crashed cars and tight spaces.
Jeff volunteered to be spinally immobilised and picked up using the splitting, Scoop Stretcher, figuring it would be a great way to avoid some work. He was right in that respect, but ended up with a crick in his neck after wearing the stiff Cervical Stabilisation Collar for the better part of half an hour. The only consolation had been having Annie hold his head in place the whole time; it made up for the fact that they almost left him bound up over lunch as a spiteful joke.
Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) was Jeff's favourite part of the course by far.
He got the chance to show off his toned arms during chest compressions and then there was the opportunity to watch Annie practice. The four males of the study group sat on their table in a happy, dazed stupor while they watched their young friend bounce up and down on the mannequin. Given her standard choice of clothes and the action required in chest compressions, it was a marvellous sight for Jeff to behold. His irritation was caught by the fact that it was display he had to share with the other guys too, as Annie unwittingly put on a show for them all. Regardless, he couldn't blame Troy and Abed for doing their special slapping handshake when she had finished.
It did seem like an event worth celebrating.
"That was pretty good right guys?" a flushed Annie asked at the end of her cycle.
"Uh yeah great Annie," Jeff stuttered in honest reply as the boobspell was broken.
The other performances on the manakin were less then satisfactory.
Britta hesitantly placed hands on the pale rubber skinned dummy, the unnatural feel and appearance creeped her out. Also her bizarre fear that she was sometimes viewed as no different to the oversized doll.
The fact that Pierce insisted on giving the resuscitation dummy mouth to mouth each time he practiced on it wasn't helping either. Especially since they had a bag mask to provide breaths for the mannequin and because he was slipping a bit to much tongue for a lifesaving attempt. Even for Pierce it was pretty bad and the group gagged and shuddered in disgust.
"Gross!" Annie accurately summed up.
Shirley performed some half-hearted CPR, but had to voice her offence that all the dummies were 'white, skinny little bimbos' as she put it. A phrasing that didn't exactly help Britta's fears.
"Troy the mannequin is not a trampoline, you are not just trying to get the highest bounce possible." Annie reprimanded him severely, as the young man started his cycle.
Troy's head hung and he stopped trying to get some 'air-time' at the top of each bouncing thrust. He had significantly less fun after that.
Jeff didn't know who was worse when it come to being overenthusiastic; Troy or Abed .
The amateur filmmaker felt compelled to re-enact his favourite lifesaving scenes from various medical dramas or action movies.
"Don't you dare die on me!" Abed yelled dramatically, between compressions.
He paused to slap the dummy instead of ventilating it.
"Come on! You've never given up on anything in your life, so live damn it!" He yelled passionately in the voice of his favourite hero of the day.
Jeff broke up the performance as his friend started to get broken up over the 'dead' body.
"There was nothing you could do." Annie reassured the broody acting Abed, buying into his fantasy.
As part of the resuscitation, they were taught more advanced skills too, like placing the basic nasal and oral airways as well as performing defibrillation.
The defibrillator, or 'the neat machine which shocks people back to life' as Troy called it, was the final part of their training for cardiac arrest. Everyone was a little disappointed to see that the movies and TV had lied to them and there were no longer using the twin plastic paddles. Greendale's equipment was old and shitty, but they at least had the budget to purchase the standard, adhesive defibrillator pads.
They looked like two giant square stickers and as the group found out, they were extremely sticky. It took Troy and Jeff five whole minutes to rip the pair off Pierce's chest, why he had thought it was a good idea to try them on in the first place was beyond them.
"Make sure you put them back in the packet once you are done, because we are going to have to reuse them." The Dean informed the group, as he popped in to see how the group was doing (perv on Jeffery doing CPR).
The administrator was unfazed by the seven incredulous looks he got back at this concept.
"What? We are trying to save money here." Dean Pelton informed them, as if it was common sense.
"Typical Greendale." Jeff commented sarcastically as Shirley reluctantly handed him back the two gross, hair-covered adhesive pads.
Fortunately, for use on the mannequins there was a special set of leads that plugged straight into the dummies chest in the correct placement. It looked like the Greendale School of Electrical Engineering had made the leads themselves and Britta may have got a small electric shock off them when she doing CPR.
"Typical Greendale," Jeff repeated to himself.
The final component of their training was a driving course, tailored specifically to emergency ambulance response. What that meant to the group, was a license to flagrantly disregard the road rules and speed to their hearts content.
Now this is a course I could get into.. Jeff thought to himself as he looked at the run down Greendale racetrack, where they were going to practice their high speed driving in.
To his horror there turned out to be a surprising amount of theory before they even let him climb in the cab. But when they eventually did, it was totally worth it.
Jeff dropped his aviators down over his eyes and started up the grunty practice ambulance. A cool grin besmirched his face and inadvertently allowed his friends to see how much he was enjoying the moment. Beside him, a bored looking Professor Garner barely looked up from his novel as Jeff peeled the top-heavy vehicle off the mark.
In the ambulance they did a number of high-speed laps with several obstacles and then backed through a line of cones. The driver's grin didn't falter at any time.
"Both hands on the wheel Mr. Winger." Was Garner's only criticism, when Jeff became too relaxed and casual in the drivers seat and dared to rest an arm out the window.
The reprimand was completely worth it, to perform the cool gesture at such high speed, the ex-lawyer thought to himself with a smug grin.
He even surrendered to giving Troy a lazy high five, when he swapped out to let the younger male sit his assessment.
The young Ms Eddison was the first person waiting for Jeff when he got back off the track and up to the tiering stand seating, where the other students were waiting their turn.
Her sweet face was alight with a genuine smile, as the tall man approached and she fell into step beside him.
"If I didn't know any better, I would think that you are actually enjoying this course." She lightly teased, taking a seat beside him with the others.
Jeff struggled to hide his grin and fervently started to deny the prosecution's outlandish claims.
"No way, all this learning to do two months practical work on a Greendale run ambulance. It is a lot of work for a measly ten credits." He snorted in protest.
Annie eyed him suspiciously, not entirely believing his negative stance on things. She had noticed his rare smile seemingly flit about on its own accord; during a couple of the days they had spent training. The last time was probably during the CPR practice, she noted with interest. It also seemed for once to be a class that Jeff was actually pretty good at, one of the few where he wasn't constantly bugging her for help before exams.
"You actually seem to be picking it up pretty well," She blurted, with a trace of surprise and was that jealousy? Pride?
Jeff shrugged at her observation and dismissed it in his usual sort of manner.
"It is all pretty common sense really, air goes in and out, blood goes round and round. You try and keep it that way." He casually summed up their learning to date.
"That might be oversimplifying it a bit Jeff." Annie pointed out, pouting and tossing her straight, mahogany hair off her shoulder.
"Is it Annie?" Jeff posed to her, lifting an eyebrow questioningly.
"Besides, if we are doing this whole ambulance thing, I plan on doing the driving rather then treating the patient in the back." He slyly added.
Annie's pout deepened at his selfish claim and she felt inclined to call him on it.
"Oh yeah that would be just like Jeff Winger wouldn't it? Avoid helping people and just turn up to have fun driving like a teenager." She accused, annoyed that he was shying from something so important and something that it seemed like he was actually good at.
"It's an ambulance not your Lexus." Britta reminded him mockingly from the seat behind, unimpressed by his carefree show of bravado at the wheel.
"Even Jeff can't look cool driving a shitty, broken down germ bus."
"You must be looking forward to this Britta," Jeff shot back, "You get to drive a vehicle without having to push start it first or jump the battery."
Britta folded her arms defensively at the crack about her own junky car.
"Material possessions like a car just aren't as important to me as they are to you guys." She declared pretentiously.
"Yet she remains highly defensive of her property.." Abed cleverly noted, pointing out the inconsistency.
"I think what you meant to say, is that you are too poor to buy a decent car or get repairs done on your current one." Jeff corrected Britta easily, his case ever building with Abed's helpful comment.
"Of all of us, you'd expect Shirley to be the best at this kind of driving." Pierce piped up, sounding surprisingly thoughtful.
"Thank you Pierce." Shirley cooed, before her smile broke, as she realised what she had just said.
The group waited for the other bigoted shoe to drop.
"That ugly great people mover you drive already is about the same size as an ambulance and your youthful years of driving stolen cars must give you a pretty good handle of driving fast." Pierce explained innocently, causing a widespread murmuring of shock and disappointment.
"That van you bought is quite large." Abed conceded to Pierce's delight and Shirley's dismay.
"Abed, don't encourage him." Jeff warned and was drowned out as Troy pulled to a screeching halt out front of the stands.
A humongous grin plastered his face as he disembarked from the still shaking vehicle.
"See? Now there was some sharp driving," Pierce addressed the group in approval, "And he owes it all to Grand Theft Auto." He finished triumphantly, as if Troy's driving had just proven his point.
"The 2001 video game?" Abed asked as a point of clarification.
"What video game?" Pierce asked in confusion, getting up from his seat to go for his turn.
"and that guy wants to be our station chief?" Jeff depreciatingly muttered.
"Congratulations on passing the training," Dean Pelton nattered in his nasally voice. The class of twenty were back in the study room at the end of the training to get equipment and a briefing for the second stage of the course.
"Here are you boots and your uniforms." The Dean revealed giving one to each of the students in the study group as they came up to him.
"Is it me or does that new guy kinda remind you of StarBurns?" Britta whispered to Troy in front of her, as they waited in line to get their gear from the Dean. It came with a congratulatory hug too if you were Jeff it seemed.
Troy turned to face the rear of the line as subtly as he could, which wasn't very subtle at all. Spying the man, he considered the nervous, grungy looking student who had suddenly turned up at the start of the new semester. It was quite blatanly the same guy, but with his hair dyed blonde.
"He is weird and smells like salami." Troy mused, before remembering something that came up during his memorial and grief counselling.
"Did you really sleep with StarBurns?" He asked Britta in surprise.
Britta's colour rose at the question, she didn't really want to answer that one. Especially not with Troy, of all people. There had been this connection growing between the two over the last couple of months and she didn't want to jeopardise that by bringing up what a mess she could be. He had enough to worry about studying at the Air Conditioner Repair School part time.
"Uh, uh," She stuttered under his scrutiny and luckily saw an end to the line in front of them.
"Ah you're up Troy, go get your uniform." She dodged, pushing Troy up towards the Dean.
Dean Pelton of course headed in for a hug on his second favourite student, but was promptly fended by the experienced footballer. The fend carried maybe a little more venom then it should, courtesy of an unanswered question in Troy's mind.
With a hurried apology and thanks to the Dean, Troy took his gear and moved over to where the others were waiting. Jeff held up the pair of overalls to his body, hoping to god that it wasn't the same pair that he had seen the dean wearing the other day.
"G.A.S? What the hell is this Dean?" He demanded turning his uniform to show the embroided patch on the front left breast. "Are we pumping petrol now instead?"
"It is not Gas Jeffery, it is G.A.S it stands for the Greendale Ambulance Service." The Dean corrected him quickly, trying to placate his irritable favourite.
"Of course it does." Jeff replied sarcastically, throwing his green uniform in a pile on top of the black boots that finished the ensemble.
Dean Pelton's enthusiasm wasn't dampened however and he went on to address the class, reminding them of what was going to happen now.
"So from here you are going to be divided up into four different watch shifts and will start responding to emergency calls in the greater Greendale Area." This was widely accepted by indifference rather then his anticipated excitement.
"Come on people get excited here, you are all signed off and ready to work on the road!" The Dean encouraged brightly. It drew a smattering of positive response, mainly from Annie, Troy and Abed who were genuinely keen to get out there.
"The ambulances are parked up in shed H on the far side of campus and we have set up one of the outlying Theoretical Phys Ed. classrooms as a station. There are couches, beds and a TV for you to use when you are not busy on shift and the trucks can be parked right outside of it."
That was more encouraging news to the study group and Jeff imagined spending his time lounging around there with the intermittent break for a callout or two.
His imagining was broken by the Dean once more.
"I have been told though, that the ambulances haven't been used in a while and may need a bit of a cleanup first." He admitted guiltily, holding his palms out in a gesture of surrender.
Before they knew what had happened, the study group found themselves the sole occupants of the room, everyone else had scarpered.
"Great." Jeff deadpanned.
"How dirty can they be?" Annie supplied positively, squeezing his arm supportively.
"I take it back," That same Annie blurted an hour later when they stood staring at the filthy vehicles. "This is beyond dirty."
"Forget how clean they are, I'm wondering if these junkers will even start." Shirley admitted pulling open the creaky door on one of the empty trucks.
With key in the ignition she twisted firmly.
A dull whirring sounded within the vehicle as the starter-motor turned over feebly. After about half a minute of the gruelling noise, something finally caught and the engine spluttered to life. The rest of the group followed Shirley's example and were lucky when Troy and Abed's ambulance also found life at the turn of a key.
Pierce and Jeff both tried on the third vehicle to no avail and finally got round to popping the hood. They were surprised to find that their vehicle didn't even have a motor in it, but it had been a great habitat for a family of racoons.
"Well it is probably quite economical, fuel wise." Jeff quipped, slamming the hood back down to the skittering of small furry feet.
"I've heard of horse power but this is just silly." Pierce tried in weak attempt of a joke, the women all gave him a forced smile as a reward for its inoffensive nature.
Troy and Abed followed their role model and opened the front of their vehicle too.
"Awww ours only has a motor in it." Troy exclaimed in disappointment at his discovery.
"And a rat," Abed amended, as a dull brown rodent scampered down from some hideout in the metalwork.
Troy joined the women in screaming, leaping off the ground and taking refuge on the bonnet of the nearest vehicle. Thankfully the rat felt much like Jeff and didn't want to stay there. He watched it go almost enviously, before turning back to the problem at hand.
"Fine we only have two trucks, Troy find you balls and drive that rust heap over to our new station." Jeff ordered, taking charge like always and trying to just get things over with as quickly as possible.
He reluctantly climbed in the other working ambulance himself and slowly coaxed it out of the decrepit garage.
This had better be worth the credits…